


Color my Skin

by SuperChorifly



Series: Amidst a Grey World [1]
Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canon-Typical Violence, Cultural Differences, Eventual Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Sexual Abuse, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-28
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:53:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 68,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23358079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SuperChorifly/pseuds/SuperChorifly
Summary: Okumura Eiji, his mother decided, would be greatly loved throughout his life. Time seemed to prove her right, since as he grew up; Eiji would grow colorful rings on his wrists as if he was collecting them.Aslan’s father had once told him -a cheap beer bottle in hand and eyes trained on the TV- that he didn't come into this world to be loved.
Relationships: Ash Lynx & Shorter Wong, Ash Lynx/Okumura Eiji, Lee Yut-Lung & Okumura Eiji, Lee Yut-Lung & Shorter Wong, Okumura Eiji & Okumura Eiji's Sister, Okumura Eiji & Original Character(s), Okumura Eiji & Shorter Wong
Series: Amidst a Grey World [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1990162
Comments: 245
Kudos: 478





	1. Well-loved

The day his mother found out she was pregnant was by no means a happy one.

No news that came while hidden away in a high school's dirty bathroom after class, school emptier by the minute, her heart feeling like a stone on her heaving chest and holding a stick with her own pee could ever be considered _good._

Days went by before she even dared to tell her best friend, both young girls holding hands, matching orange rings on their wrists covered by cloth, both of them hidden in a desolated part of the beach that surrounded their small town, tear tracks on their faces, promising to be there for each other forever, words too grand for their 18 year old heads to grasp but sincere enough in their hearts.

She was hiding two months of lies and sleepless nights under too big sweaters and strategically worn skirts when she gathered the courage to use the public telephone outside the convenience store to call Kenta-Senpai to his college residence and tell him. The truth was met by a long silence and then-

 _‘But we were so careful'_ (clearly not enough)

 _'Have you told anyone?'_ (Only Saya-chan)

 _'I’m so sorry, Hanako'_ (It’s not just your fault).

Telling her mother, was another thing altogether.

 _Strict_ could be a word used to describe Takahashi Etsuko, a single mother of two girls in the rural side of their town, with no money and no soulmate to help her, only a black line cutting her wrist since her husband’s death, forever hidden under a _kumihimo_ bracelet, being strict was just a means of survival.

 _Brutal_ may be a more accurate word if you asked Kenta, especially after watching Hanako’s mother emotionless face from across the table, both hands on her skirt while theirs were joint on top of the _kotatsu_ , his pinkish mark covered by his watch while Hanako’s was hidden under the table, where her right hand fisted around nothing in a valiant attempt of keeping the tears at bay when her mother gave her no more than half an hour to take her things and leave.

Given this circumstances it was no wonder Hanako couldn’t believe her eyes when her baby boy, already two years old and meeting his grandmother for the first time after some long conversations and intensive meddling from her little sister, grew a bright yellow line on his chubby left wrist when Etsuko gave her grandson an experimental pat on the head.

Hanako’s sister wouldn’t stop laughing at their dumbfounded expressions for years to come, Etsuko, after nearly two years of self-enforced isolation from her daughter’s family, would rage war before skipping her weekly visits at their home and her time with her darling grandson.

Okumura Eiji, Hanako decided right then and there, would be greatly loved throughout his life, because anyone who could put that smile on her mother’s face would be a force to be reckoned with. Time seemed to only prove her right, since as he grew up; Eiji would grow colorful rings on his wrists as if he was collecting them.

The soft pink line that joined his grandmother’s yellow almost went unnoticed on his skin if it weren’t for the fact Mika’s (his newborn sister) red skin created a stark contrast. Joy wasn’t a big enough word for the feeling both Kenta and Hanako felt at the sight, knowing that their children would not only get along but that they would be there for each other no matter what. It seemed no time at all passed when Eiji came running into the house, yelling and scaring the life out of his mother, waving his right arm excitedly, a green line brand new on his skin. He wore his parent’s ears off at dinner telling them how the new kid in school was his soulmate too, he told them at least three different times the story of how, after falling from the seesaw a kid one year older with wild hair and grey eyes helped him up, green exploding at their contact. If Eiji was excited about it, that was nothing compared to the pure unadulterated triumph that shined on Rihito’s eyes, apparently Eiji had been his first mark. From then on, instead of having a five year old and a newborn, the Okumura’s small home housed three kids almost every day.

Three soon became four when Eiji came back from school, only six years old and already a new mark on one of his wrists, Hanako was going to start dreading the first day of school if it meant her kid was going to come back home with a new soulmark - and a new kid - each year. This time it was a girl from his class named Hana, she was new in town, recently coming to live with an aunt after her parent’s passing, two ugly black lines were joined by Eiji’s lively blue one and it was at her pitiful sight, practically dragged into her home by her over-excited kid that Hanako began setting a new set of plates at her dinner table and resigned herself to be a victim of her own words. Eiji was indeed well-loved.  
With Hana, sadly, came a conversation Hanako and Kenta hoped could have been postponed until he was a little older.

"Hana is angry at me” came the little voice from the door of their bedroom, a couple of big, dark brown, teary eyes staring at them from where he had cracked their door open, both hands on the doorframe as if to shield himself. Hanako, who had hoped after Kenta had put the kids to sleep they could have some alone time with him, sighed and sat up on the bed, her husband following her lead with a tired groan.

"Why do you think so?” Kenta asked. Little feet scampered towards the bed and a small body climbed the bed only settling down when he found his spot under the blankets and between them. Hanako and Kenta shared a worried look when their six year old wouldn't look at them, instead opting for hiding his face on his mother’s side. A mumbled, nonsensical noise came from under the covers. “We can’t understand you Ei-chan” he said with a softer tone.

“I made her cry today” his answer came laced with guilt and trembling in his voice. Hanako frowned, but didn’t stop the soothing movements she was tracing on her son’s back, nevertheless she was cut short from her answer when Eiji shot up and began talking hurriedly “But it wasn’t my fault! For real! I only asked her a question and she ran out crying, she wouldn’t look at me for the rest of the day and after class she just left! Didn’t even say goodbye” As he finished, Eiji entire body seemed to crumble back into the bed.  
"Questions can be hurtful too, Ei-chan, even if we don’t mean them that way” Hanako settled with. “And when we hurt someone’s feelings we have to apologize, no matter if we don’t think we were hurtful” Eiji pouted and avoided her eyes, tears clouding his eyes once more.

"What was the question you asked her?” Kenta took over, giving his wife a soft look of support over Eiji’s mess of black hair, before looking at him again.

“I asked her about her soulmarks… The black ones”

"Eiji!” Both parents said disapprovingly. Eiji was young, but even young kids know how private soulmarks were, and even if Eiji and Hana were indeed soulmates and were becoming good friends, good enough to not cover their marks when they were home, they were still just getting to know each other and black soulmarks were an especially sensitive topic.

“I just wanted to understand! I’ve never seen ones that color. You both have, and Mika and Rihito and I, and they are all sorts of colors, but she has two the same color and they are so dark, I just wanted to know”

Black soulmarks weren't a subject easily explained to children, but they did their best. The meaning itself was simple enough, a black soulmark meant a dead soulmate, while many marks could fade with time, when a soulmate had already served their purpose in your life, and others could last an entire lifetime like in fairy tales and movies, black soulmarks were the only certainty. Once a soulmate died before their time in your life ended, the once soft and colorful line that circled you skin would blacken and scar, no cream or surgery could cover them, a representation of the void they left forever tattooed on your skin. A horrible thing to happen to anyone, but specially a girl of six.  
Eiji spent the night in their room, after crying himself to sleep saying he was sorry over and over again, breaking his parents hearts over and over again, the next morning he woke up with his head set on a mission, a quest for forgiveness. Hanako and Kenta didn’t really know what that quest entailed, but it clearly worked, because that afternoon their house was once again filled with the laughter of three little kids and a newborn, their table full of little mouths to feed.

Eiji was ever more grateful and also more humble of his marks after that, always remembering to cover them when in public and treating everyone who gave him one with even more affection, his heart an ever flowing fountain of care for his loved ones.

Not all on his life were happy things though, for good things are often short, his sister was a wobbly two year old mess at his side in the eerily clean hospital room, tugging at his shirt with no care in the world as their mother cried at their father’s bedside, the doctor still droning on words too big for Eiji’s young brain to understand, but he didn’t need to know what metastasis and chemotherapy meant, he knew they were bad words with a bad meaning.

It was during one of their ever more frequent visits to the hospital that Eiji had his first black mark. He was wandering through the halls going unnoticed once he could no longer stand the tired look on his mother’s face, now that she was working two small jobs to help with the bills she was always tired, and his dad frail looking skin stretching over bony face and hands were starting to erase any other memory of him. He was hiding from his aunt, she wanted to take him to her house for the night, but he just wanted to go back to his own house, he wanted Rihito and Hana to be there, he wanted his mom to be waiting for them and his dad to come home early from work with treats for everyone, his only comfort was Mika, the little girl always managed to pull a smile out of him -wherever he went she followed, but she wasn’t here now, he was alone and hiding in an abandoned room sounded wonderful right now.

Only the room wasn’t abandoned, an old man was there on a hospital bed, a cable connected to his arm, just like his dad’s, a bald head, just like his dad’s and a look of utter and complete wariness.

Just like his dad.

Only, unlike his dad, he was all alone. No crying wife beside him, no never-ending string of nurses or doctors coming to check on him. Eiji isn’t sure what makes him walk further into the room, the man’s visage wasn’t a particularly enticing one, maybe it was the fact he was alone, maybe it was because Eiji felt alone too. As he walked in more things became apparent, the man was looking at the ceiling and seemed unaware he had company, his breathing was shallow and arrhythmic. His wrists were bare.

Not only bare of any fabric to cover them, but also bare of any mark, there was no color on either of them, Eiji noticed when he rounded his bed, his breathing harsher by the second, there wasn’t even a black mark like Hana’s. Eiji felt his eyes water and he wasn’t even sure why. He didn’t like this, didn’t like this too empty room or the man’s loud, so loud, breathing, it felt cold and so incredibly lonely, loneliness like he had never experienced, Eiji felt sad, his own breathing getting shallower. He shouldn't be here, this man’s loved ones should be here or maybe a doctor, the machine he was hooked on emitting all kind of sounds.

He shouldn’t be here.

But he was, maybe he didn’t belong, but by some unknown force he was the one there and as he looked up he found a couple of brown eyes staring weakly at him. The man was full of wrinkles and a mask covered half his face, but his eyes transmitted his feelings perfectly, even if Eiji was too young to catch the full message.

Longing was not something he recognized well at seven years old.

Slowly he raised a hand, he doesn’t know what compels him to do it, but without a second thought he holds the man’s hand. It was cold, the tips of his fingers were a bluish hue that reminded Eiji of the sea or of his mother’s apron, when she still wore it.

Like it had happened to him so many times, there was a tingle under his skin, a warm feeling in his chest and color forming itself on his skin, purple, kinda like the man's fingers. Eiji gasped and looked up, brown eyes stared back at him, tears running to the side of his face and disappearing behind his ear, a trembling smile met him from under the oxygen mask. He doesn’t know how long he stays like that, but he feels like the moment is cut short when teary eyes close, nurses and a doctor rush in and pushes him out of the room, he stumbles back to his dad’s room and gets there just in time for purple to turn black.

His disconcerted parents learn after the man’s name and some of his story, they don’t tell Eiji until he’s older, but, per his request, his mother takes him to the cemetery every year to leave flowers and pray over his ashes.

Eiji knew well the feeling you get when you meet a soulmate, he has had it enough times to not forget it. Losing one once is enough to never forget the feeling it evokes either. It’s cold, it’s heaving breaths, it’s an empty feeling he never quite recuperates from.

He hopes he never has to relieve it, but hoping and reality are two very different things.

When he turns 8 he starts doing track after school, if only to go back home later, after his mom is back from one of her part-time jobs. He likes letting his energy out, likes how he gets along with other kids from different years, Rihito had pushed him to it, like he pushes Eiji so often to come out of his shell and do things he wouldn’t otherwise. It isn’t until he’s nine that he tries pole vaulting. Part of him kind of expects a ring to appear on his wrist when he takes a pole and for the first time he soared through the air, it feels like an important enough moment to merit a mark, but objects don't provoke marks. Any way, it feels as if he starts another life, like there is a point in his timeline before and one after. For a couple years that’s all he thinks about, he grows up and makes more friends, Rihito now goes to another school and they don’t meet every day but his cheerful friend is never too far away, for every foul mood that plagues Eiji’s mind Rihito seemed to sense it and do everything in his capabilities to solve it, he was outgoing and loud where Eiji had become focused and calmer. Hana and him still spent almost all their time together, she smiled way more and had found a new soulmate of her own, a girl from another school who she had painting classes with after school.

Eiji’s dad came back home, his hair growing back slowly, the word remission had come as a breath of fresh air on their stale and dust filled house. His mother still worked too much, but now she had one steadier job that she liked instead of two crappy ones she loathed. For a time all thought of marks took pause on Eiji’s head, he figured he had met most if not all of them, a person gets around 4 to 5 soulmates in their lifetime after all. He had just been lucky to find them early on.  
Most of them at least; some days he couldn't shake that cold, empty feeling, he asked his oba-chan, once she uncovered her blackened wrist to him after the incident in the hospital, a solemn look on her usually stoic but kind face.

“Does it ever go away?”

“This isn’t a sickness to cure or an injury to heal, it’s a reminder of what we had, could have had and no longer can, it will always stay with us, because our soulmates will always stay with us, that is what the gods willed and there is nothing we can do to change it, a part of their souls will forever be with us and ours with them, wherever they are now”.  
Her answer while filled with wisdom was not satisfying and he decided to push all thoughts of his black mark to the back of his head and he put pole vaulting to the forefront. He lacked the natural advantage of height, but he was flexible and invested and most of all he was determined, his coach started to give him more of his time during practice and he started to spend all his free time training.

Years passed and his dad went back to the hospital and back out again, he worked from home now and had to go to the hospital for constant checkups. During the times the cancer came back and had to do chemo or whatever other nasty medical procedure, Eiji looked after him, cooking, cleaning barf and changing soiled sheets became natural to him. His sister, now turning six grew up on this regime and helped in what she could, they walked together every day to and from school, he was the first person she told when she got her second mark, a red line joining Eiji’s pink, the girl was an exchange student one year her senior, a Canadian named Maggie who Eiji had only seen in passing, Mika would sport her mark the entire year Maggie was there only for it to slowly fade once she was gone, her skin smooth and un marked and Eiji couldn't bring himself to feel jealous, even if he despised the charred mark on his wrist and wished more than anything he could’ve had what she had had with Maggie, a short friendship that left his skin clear and his heart less heavy, he was eternally grateful his little sister didn't need to know that feeling yet.

Life changed and kept moving and they all adjusted to it in kind.

The 11th of March, 2011 was a slap to the face, a literal shake to his very foundation that crumbled his walls and left him bare. He was training as he often was when the earth itself seemed to want to push him down, he was mid run and had to throw himself to the ground to feel any resemblance of stability, other children screamed but the worst sound came from the ground itself, a rumbling that spread to every building, windows exploding and smashing against their own frames, the earth screamed a deep growl and buildings came down with the force of it. The feeling was too grand, the way it stopped and they all were rushed to the safety zones, it was all just too much.

It took him awhile to catch the black line on his wrist, bright yellow gone forever. His breath felt heavy and shallow, like it came from a semi abandoned hospital room, his fingers felt cold and a part of his very soul left him.

Again.

Later, when he was finally reunited with his family and they had settled in their little space in the community shelter they had to live in after their house became nothing but debris, his parents finally told them how it had happened, a heart attack from the commotion she got from the earthquake. He remained calm as his little sister cried, he helped his mom get his dad comfortable, thanking the gods he was going through one of his healthy periods. Well… Healthier.

It was only when it was dark and they had gone to sleep that he and his mother naturally came together and wept.

The next time he felt the tingling warm sensation he almost screamed, he could understand now why Hana had looked so scared when their mark appeared. He was not ready, he was so scared.

Her name was Dora, she was a girl the same age as him from across the world, she was born in Latin-American, her skin was darker than his, but her eyes were green. She was his complete opposite and perfect to get him over his fear of getting a new soulmate, she was loud and warm; she carried her arms uncovered, proud and with not a bit of shame in her body.

Cultural differences were tricky, they realized when she crashed against him while running after her coach at Eiji’s first ever international competition, a red line cut through his skin right on top his oba-chan’s black and she yelled her excitement, she demanded to see Eiji’s mark in broken english and only stopped when his discomfort became too apparent. To her seeing and showing soulmarks was natural, a way to show the world she was lucky and a way to be grateful, even. She hadn't grown up learning only family and really close friends could see your soulmarks, just like she didn't know the same applied to first names, she was offended when he kept calling her Román-Chan and not Dora, as she kept insisting, meanwhile she called him Eiji from their first meeting onwards. He almost never saw her, since they lived literally across the world from each other but the Internet made things so much easier.

He and Dora could talk about pole vaulting at length, they shared a passion for it, they also had many similarities; she too had a little sibling, a brother who she shared a soulmark with and a black line crossing her wrist (her mother).

The day came, of course, when fly boy in the sky finally crashed to the ground and flew no more, his ankle busted to pieces and his career over, his sports scholarship gone with it. Only Mika could contain him, holding his hand all the while the doctor explained things that couldn't matter less to Eiji in that moment, ‘he overexerted his body’, ‘signs of malnourishment’, ‘common in athletes’, all just white noise, the only thing in his head was a murmur of a memory, a small version of him wondering if a mark would appear when he took a pole for the first time, now he thought it would only be appropriate if a black, scarred line joined his oba-chan’s and the man in the hospital’s ones.

Japan became dark and cold, two of his soulmates were off in college while he had to drop out. A world away Dora was soaring and doing the very thing he could no longer do, his own existence a bad omen he didn’t want to push on her, a grim reminder of what happens when you do too much too fast. Finally, his sister had her own life and he was only taking that away from her by making her taking care of him, holding his hand and hearing him cry with each night when not even the medication from his psychiatrist numbed him enough.

Ibe-san coming up with and job offer and a trip to the U.S sounded like a dream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Thank you so much for getting this far, it means the World to me. I hope you enjoyed it, I really liked writing it. This is meant to be multichaptered and I promise right now this will have a happy ending or so help me.
> 
> Full disclaimer: I write a bit about pole vaulting, but I don't know ANYTHING about it.
> 
> Also, english is not my first language so if you see any thing wrong please do LET me know.
> 
> Please leave a comment! And stay home and safe.


	2. Unloved

His father had once told him -a cheap beer bottle in hand and eyes trained on the TV- that he didn't come into this world to be loved.

There were some people, a lucky few, that simply were born different than him and Aslan were. Some people just drew love and happiness to them, like flies to honey, while people like them just... Didn't. They were made of harder stuff, of a tougher and ultimately colder material. It made them stronger, but lonelier.

Aslan guesses that is as good an explanation as any to give your seven year old kid about why exactly he should just let his baseball coach keep on raping him every Friday afternoon and not tell anyone after the cops didn't believe them the first and only time they tried to get help the legal way.

"Your mother was one o' those people" he would say and Aslan would listen with all his might hoping against reason he would spill a bit more of information about her, yet he always maintained the same short speech. "Arms full o'color she had, like a damn rainbow on 'er skin"

He would go on to say that is why she left, those people took happiness and went on their merry way to get some more. Aslan doesn't really know why his old man made such a big deal about it, it's not as if he and Aslan's mom had ever shared a ring. He never voiced this though, he kept quiet and listened him say "Your brother too, y'know? You were but 'nother ring on that boy's arm, and he left you too, didn't he?" 

By this time, his words would begin to slur a bit too much, his head would wobble and Aslan could finally stop pretending he had been paying attention to that last part and he would finally change the channel to something more interesting, his little hands would softly take the bottle from his dad's dangling hand and he would steal a couple of bitter sips.

It hadn't always been like this.

He didn't remember his mother, but he did know she wasn't Griffin's mother; she had been their father's wife for a few years, a picture of her half hidden among his brother's things, she had died when Griffin was a kid in a car accident or something like that, her name a forbidden thing to him, he also knew his mother had left; basically escaped the hospital as soon as she had been able to stand leaving him to the care of a drunk and a teenage boy.  
It didn't matter, he never had the need for a mom o even for a dad growing up, not when he had Griffin to run to when he woke up from a nightmare or to have fun with. His big brother was and forever will be the coolest most awesome person Aslan had ever met, everything he did Aslan wanted to do too and Griff seemed to be able to do just about everything; He cooked and did well in school, he had friends, could handle a gun and he carried a tune pretty well, he also was there for every need Aslan could have, be it help in school or to answer any question Aslan's brain conjured up. It wasn't until Aslan was older and in charge of his own group of kids when himself was still a teenager that he realized Griffin had probably been way more out of his depth than what he had let on, that only made his admire him way more, though.

Griffin Callenreese had a collection of four rings on his arms when his father dropped his kid brother in his arms, small red thing with a tuff of yellow hair and almost no eyebrows, all bundled up and crying. Griffin was out of his depth, no idea what to do to make a small baby stop crying, he started humming and cradling the baby closer to him. Aslan hadn't stopped crying for hours, only when Griffin's skin touched his and a sky-blue line appeared on their skin did the kid quiet down, a soft, confused sound replacing the loud screaming when the tingling and warmth reached him.

It was only natural most the information Aslan had gotten about soulmates growing up had come from Griffin, especially because Griffin was the person with more soulmarks he knew, granted, he didn't knew that many people. His father only got one, to his knowledge, the day a third woman named Jennifer came into their lives, she only had one other line for a friend she had basically grown up with. Aslan only had the one, most kids on his school or on the little league didn't have more than him if they had any at all, not everyone got a mark from family after all.

Griffin had two marks for his high school buddies, one for an old woman who lived alone with her 2 cats and who always sent casseroles and leftovers to the two boys living on their own in that lonely house in exchange for their constant visits to drink sweet tea and help her move furniture around. He, of course had Aslan's mark and on the very base of his wrist, a black one. At first Aslan hadn't actually known there was anything wrong with that one, only it was the only mark Griffin always hid under a leather bracelet he had bought near the beach. It made such a contrast against his skin and the test of the lovely colors his arm portrayed, it made Aslan feel uneasy, as dark, mysterious things often did.

"This was my mom" Griffin would tell him one day after he caught Aslan staring at it one too many times "Had it since I was born, it was purple before, went black once she kicked it"

After that the inevitable conversation came and Aslan learned a whole lot about soulmarks, he learned that his brother had most likely met most of his soulmates, while most people met around five people they were meant to be with, one way or another, scattered throughout their lives, some met them all pretty fast. This people could be their soulmates in a romantic or a platonic way, sometimes it could even be a rival of sorts, their relationship pushing both forward, they could even start as one type and grow into something different.

They could also last just about any amount of time; the shortest known soulbond was around 3 weeks while some had been lucky enough to have a soulmate for life. There wasn't any real explanation as to why this happened, some religions had their own origin stories as did some scientists, but all were theories in the end, the one thing everyone knew was that when your skin touched your soulmate's a tingling feeling would run through your body and a colored ring, about half an inch thick, would circle your arm. Nothing, not the color or the placement of the mark, would tell you what kind of soulbond you had with that person or how long it would last, one thing was for sure, they would be important to you and, at least for a moment, they would be exactly what you need, a sort of complement to yourself. Also, many people whose mark disappeared after their time in each other's lives had ended still got along really well and could forever be a very important person to the other.

There were people who were lucky and had more than five marks, though it was rare, Griffin was one of them if the very last letter he received from his brother while in the army was to be believed. Griff, with all his talent with words and his penchant for poetry, gave a full description of the moment he met this one guy, Max something, and orange bloomed on their skin. A small dose of jealousy got into Aslan, since he only had the one sky-blue line on his arm, it was not fair his brother had so many, and he was so young too! He was probably going to meet a few more when he grew old.

Ironically, it was only a few weeks later that they got the news that Griffin Callenreese was officially M.I.A, presumably dead.

Aslan refused to believe it, for his skin remained sky-blue, if only a little washed away.

Then the whole Blue Beard of Cape Cod business came to be, Aslan was sure Griffin would come, they were soulmates after all, they were supposed to be there when the other needed them, and Aslan definitely needed him, since their dad and the cops were no help. Night after night as he layed in bed on an empty house, Friday afternoon after Friday afternoon that he spent reliving a nightmare he expected his brother to come home so he could run to him after he woke up from it, his baseball uniform haphazardly thrown on him and pain that run from between his legs into his very core.

The day sky blue completely banished from his skin, like a pencil stain washing off, was the day 8 year old Aslan Callenreese took his father's gun and was Aslan Callenreese no more.

It wasn't long before he runs away from his old man, from the empty house, from the bones in the basement, from the oppressing dark that settled upon everything back there. Soulmates a faraway concept, alien to his mind.

You don't really have time to think about colorful lines in your skin when your stomach growled louder than the New York traffic and the only people who offered to help were the same kind of monsters he had run away from.

But he was so hungry and his father had- actually- told him he should at least get money out of it.

Aslan had been raised going to church every Sunday, saying grace before every meal and praying before going to bed. Ash on the other hand didn't have much reason to believe there was a god, at least not one worth praying to, either way, he still felt compelled to go down on his knees and thank whatever force allowed his skin, which he searched with dread each time he was touched, each night he was left cold and bleeding, to remain unmarked. There was a twisted soft of satisfaction on the disappointed look that came over Dino's features when he touched him for the first time -that damned first time- and no ring marked Ash as his, it didn't matter what he did to him, it didn't matter how many men raped him, bruised him, broke him, it didn't matter how much they payed for him like he was a thing or that Dino kept him like one would a pet, there was a part of him none of them could own. Even if sometimes his wrists sported red angry rope marks or bruises or if his soul felt like a mangled bleeding mess inside his chest, it was his mangled bleeding mess, no one else's.

From that day on, Dino ordered his arms to be covered when he was presented to him, he didn't like that reminder, the threat that some person could come and take that one part of his precious pet he couldn't own and play with.

Ash is fourteen when he meets her, never really learns her name, she is just another kid that has her light slowly drained at Club Cod dark backrooms, but she smiles at him. She smiles despite it all, smuggles food to him after they are done with him and helps him heal injuries he would be ashamed to show almost anyone. He thinks about soulmates for the first time in what feels like ten lifetimes and allows himself to think about sky-like blue. She had only a pale looking pinkish one, like it once it had been bright red, but he didn't ask, perhaps if a mark had appeared when they touched he would have, but with things as they were he simply nodded his thanks to her and watched her quickly leave his room.

His mistake is telling Blanca about her, a moment of lowered guard, misplaced trust where he tells his teacher he half expected a mark to show when she touched him. The next time he sees her, blood mattes her hair to her sunk in skull, dark bruises and gaping wounds on her skin and a washed away pink mark not quite gone from her arm seems to be the only color left on her, he distantly wonders if somewhere out there someone’s pinkish mark had just turned black.

Given these circumstances he thinks he deserves to be cut some slack when he honest to god shrieks and slaps the bald kid's hand away after their fingers brush against one another, with way to much force, and refuses to talk to him for a week. Unfortunately - of fortunately- Shorter Wong is nothing if not annoyingly perseverant and the bright purple line that now crossed both their wrists was a hell of a motivator, for Shorter at least, and there weren't many places Ash could hide inside juvie. It sort of feels like having a big brother again, Ash notes after he gets used to Shorter being around him all the god dammed time.

With Shorter around, no one came to bother him for his pretty face or his lone wolf demeanor, also, Shorter had been in juvie for longer than Ash so he knew all the good spots where the guards wouldn't catch them smoking or what time was the safest to shower. He learned Shorter had a big sister, Nadia, who he shared a white mark with, he also learned Shorter was soon to be Chinatown's gang Boss and awe came over him, being a Boss sounded awfully freeing when Shorter told him about it and freedom was all he longed for, all he truly wanted.

"Gee, and here I thought what you and I had was special, you asshole!" his loud laughter took all seriousness that statement could have ever carried, that laughter reverberated on Ash's own chest, releasing a bit of the tension he had been accumulating for years.

So while Shorter's existence brought some reprieve from the ongoing nightmare that had become his life, it also came with inescapable trouble, because even if Dino always kept Ash's arms covered it was only a matter of time the bright purple would catch someone's eye, it left him with only one possible road to take, he had to get away from him somehow, he couldn't allow for it to happen again, he couldn't fathom Shorter Wong with no life on him, yet his brain unhelpfully supplied the images of a sunk in skull and gaping wounds –and all that after a simple smile- a soulmark would be punished so far worse.

He didn't exactly plan to become Ash Lynx, one of the most feared and admired gang Bosses in Manhattan, but the power was a welcome protection and the thought of taking in the lost kids of New York into his gang and put them to work gave him a strange sense of calm, so what of it if said work was illegal, he would have killed for a chance like that when he arrived to this unforgiving city. His life became increasingly busy, if it weren't for Shorter he would have all but forgotten about soulmates, even that soulmate who had-been went to the back of his mind, that is, until Griffin showed up alive and unable to walk in a rundown VA hospital under a different name and brain damaged.

At least that's what he was told and it wasn't hard to believe, his brother had been lively and warm, the man on the ratty bedsheets was anything but, his skin had greyed, eyes hollow and once blond hair looked mousy, sharp stubble permeated his shin and hollowed out cheeks. However, the thing that actually broke Ash wasn't any of those, it was his arms as they layed colorless at his sides.

Ash Lynx hadn't come into this world to be loved, that much was true, but Griffin had, color had never strayed from his skin, people and love had come to him naturally, like flies to honey, so why was there no color on him now? Ash desperately wished to know why the only one remaining was that awful black line.

God! He hated that color, hated the dark, hated what had become of them.

He takes his brother with him and hides him, searches for cures and doctors that can help, and prays for the first time in ages for his big brother to at least _look_ at him. He prays for sky blue to blossom in his skin once more. He prays to know what the hell Banana Fish is.

There is just too much going on, so when Skipper announces a couple of Japanese journalists want to meet him, he doesn't give it much thought, after all, it's not like they are going to be at all relevant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I passed my finals! Oh god, ending my semester online was more stressful than I thought but it's over now and I'll have some more time to write!
> 
> I want to give huge thanks to everyone who commented last chapter, you give me life, honestly. Sorry for not answering right away, but finals, y'know.
> 
> Please comment what you thought of this!
> 
> I hope everyone is staying inside and being safe, see you next chapter!


	3. 3

Eiji was already regretting this.

“Stop that” Mika says dryly.

“I’m not doing anything” He defends.

“You are thinking too much again, stop it” She’s in a bad mood, arms crossed over her chest and eyes trained on a point far ahead. Anyone would think she’s angry; she’s scowling and casting a dark aura, keeping anyone on a two meters radius far away. It could be because they’re soulmates or because Eiji kind of raised her, but he knows she is actually nervous for him. He looks sideways at her and immediately she sends a glare on his direction.

Ok so he is 90% sure she is only nervous for him and maybe 10% angry.

They‘re killing time outside the airport where they’re supposed to meet Ibe-san. They were supposed to meet there 3 hours before they flight left, leave it to Eiji to get there 4 and a half hours early, little sister and one big suitcase and a backpack with all his belongings in tow. He is pretty sure he has a weird and undocumented form of PTSD after literal years of his coach raising hell whenever he was even one minute late to practice, any tardiness punished with extra workout, a scolding of a lifetime and usually with an increasingly stricter diet and training regime.

That’s not why his sister is maybe 15% angry with him though. He takes his chances and leans his body a bit more towards her, expression unassuming and nonresponding to her glare. It takes a moment or two but eventually her glare breaks and she sighs, small body crumbling at his side. She’s so tiny, neither of them had their father’s taller genes, and at fourteen she still hadn’t gotten her growth spurt –a late bloomer, just like him. Eiji was already regretting his decision but that was only his soulbond speaking, pulling and telling him to stay in Japan, where three of his surviving four soulmates would remain as he took a plane to unknown lands.

Any sane person would stay, who just walked away from their soulmates? Especially since he had so many of them, it was like buying the winning the lottery and turning away the price. It’s not like he would get to win the lottery again, Eiji was nineteen and he already had met all his soulmates -almost certainly- three soulmarks on each arm, reaching almost half up his forearm, strategically hidden under heavy long lasting makeup and long sleeves. He was already above average on his soulmate count, so what was he expecting to get from his quest to the US, everyone he could need was here, everyone who could need him.

“I can’t believe you’re leaving me alone here” Mika-chan’s words turn up mumbled against his arm, fingers coming up to pinch his side.

He yelps and swats her hand away “I’m not leaving you alone! I got a job offer which happens to be kinda far away, besides, you have mom at home” He knows she sees right through him, but his sister is graceful enough to not call on his bullshit for now.

“Same difference” she retorts, arms crossing and gaze faraway once more “You know she’s spends most of her free time at Ito-san’s place anyway”

“And you spend most of your time at practice or at your friend’s house, so what if she has friends too” Eiji mumbles his response, mirroring her stance now and ignoring her incredulous look. They both know, ‘friend’ is not quite the right word for Ito-san, the widowed from across the street, but Eiji feels so tired. He has felt tired for years, it seems, his injury not helping his case at all. He has been aware of the way their parent’s relationship had shifted for a while now, marks still bright on their skin, but their romantic relationship had been on an uphill battle for almost as long as Mika’s been alive, so he doesn’t blame her for been sick of the pretense, she doesn’t have those distant, blurry memories of a happy healthy family to evoke nostalgia from.

Also she’s on her transition from annoying kid to angsty teenager so who is Eiji to tell her to be patient, she’s on a losing battle against hormones and society’s expectations, she’s so screwed that Eiji both mourns and is sort of relieved he won’t be there to experience it.

He sighs and drops his stance, arms hugging himself more out of need than anger now “You know I would stay if I could… If there was anything I…” He doesn’t even know what he wants to say. But as always is not necessary, Mika shakes her head, as if to chase angry thoughts away and looks at him, brown eyes kind –I know- they seem to say.

Instead she sighs and looks at her phone and Eiji knows that conversation is over “Ibe-san should be here in about half an hour, come on” She calls to him, walking away with his suitcase inside the airport.

Eiji scrambles to catch her, thrown off by the way the atmosphere around them just shifts to something much more manageable “Wait! What are we doing?”

“You are buying me a Starbucks! If I’m gonna be dragged all the way here I’m at least going to get an aesthetic IG story out of it!” And then she is off.

It’s all for show though, by the time they have to go she’s hiding quiet tears on his chest, hugging his middle and almost cutting all oxygen from going into his lungs. He’s not doing much better, his face hidden in her long black hair and trying to commit her to memory. There’s nothing sure about the time he’s going to leave for, all depending on this one article, if he does a good enough job he might get another and so on. They promise to call each other again, even though they had done the same back at home. Before leaving Izumo Eiji had visited his dad at the hospital, unpleasant thing to do now that his dad’s mind drifted more often than not, Eiji was usually confused with an uncle he never met but whom his father was very close to growing up, other times his dad would be disoriented and reacted violently to the sterile and alien environment of the hospital, thankfully he still had conscious periods. Eiji wasn’t lucky enough to catch him in one of those periods, but he had had a heartwarming chat with his dad who kept calling him Oni-chan. Eiji and his mom’s goodbye had been sweet, she had cooked like she almost never did anymore and she had hugged him tight before going to bed, no words needed. Eiji video called Hana and Rihito, both wishing him luck, mostly they were glad he was getting out of bed and going out into the world again –Rihito’s words.

Eiji went to the cemetery, he prayed at both his dead soulmates’ graves, telling each about his plans and insecurities, promising to return to leave fresh flowers someday.

  
“I got you something, but you have to promise me you won’t look at it until you arrive at New York” Mika pulls away from their hug and reaches into her backpack, dropping a small burlap sack on his open palm. She leaves soon after, Ibe-san’s fiancée gracious enough to drive her home. Her words sound ominous enough that he should have known not to get his hopes up; after two connecting flights, bus rides and three flights of stairs with no elevator to get to Ibe-san’s apartment he feels dirty and not at all human, curse jet-lag. So of course his darling’s sister parting gift was a prank, a freaking love omamori. Eiji vengefully felt so much better about hiding his sister’s favorite manga before he left, he had almost felt guilty about it.

Eiji’s little dream of independence once he got to New York City has more bumps on the road that he hoped, it was hard to feel very adult when he was staying in Ibe-san’s guest bedroom until further notice, paying rent was just now an option right now. He’s given permission to decorate however he wants though, so reluctantly he resigns to hang Mika’s omamori from the wall above his bed, if only to give the plain room a more homely feel. Eiji had started learning English when he was very young, had gone to many competitions with foreigners and in was the only language he could communicate to one of his soulmates with, so he was shocked when he realized that hearing it 24/7 was a bit exhausting, especially when combined with accents and slang, he was glad for the small kamidana Ibe-san had on the living room and to be able to speak his mother tongue from time to time with him.

It turns out that in this article about street gangs, they were missing a street gang to interview, an elusive gang boss kept declining Ibe-san’s contact with the police, a kind man named Charlie, attempts at arrange a meeting. So in the meantime Eiji met all kinds of people, he was introduced at the newspaper Ibe-san worked at, the police station and even to Ibe-san’s inmate friend who they both visited at a prison, at all this places he was confused as Ibe-san’s son, mistaken for a way younger kid and most people talked over him, often assuming from his quietness that he didn’t speak English at all. Eiji preferred this to the first time he met Jenkins at the police station and he spoke loudly and slowly at him as if that would help their communications. Over all, America was an experience.

He video called Mika the day before they finally got to meet the infamous Ash Lynx thanks to a helpful middle man who agreed on the meeting, she babbled about how she was doing in practice, her problems with her friends, how annoyed she was with their mom and with him for leaving just to laze around in America.

“If you haven’t done that interview yet the least you could do is to go out! You are a teenager, go party!”

“I’m an adult, Mika-chan, I’m here for a job I can’t just go to a party” He huffs, puffing up his chest in a pathetic attempt of pretending he has any amount of self-respect in him.

“You just turned nineteen, can’t even grow a beard and you are an intern at best” Mika deadpans mercilessly “Go to a party! Date pretty boys or girls, _at least_ tell me you’ve gone to Central Park”

“Of course I’ve gone to Central Park!” He lies.

“And what about the pretty boys or girls?” She’s grinning, eyebrow arched and head on her hand. What a bastard “You got my present, right?” God, he hates her so much.

“Must have lost it” He lies between gritted teeth, fully aware of the fact Mika can probably see her omamori hanging on a wall behind him.

When Eiji and Ibe-san arrive at the bar they’re supposed to meet Ash Lynx –what kind of name is that, anyway?- he feels almost as if he is living a double life, just last night he had hung up on his sister mid-sentence once she had annoyed him enough only to call her right back when he felt bored and lonely only half an hour later –he hangs up on her again after that, just because-. Now he was in a part of town that could only be called _unsavory_ , police nearby in case… In case of what? He hadn’t asked, should he have asked? Oh god, he was so stupid why on earth did he ever thought this was a good idea.

As he walks down the steps he feels like he is descending towards hell, the room is filled with tough looking men and women and they all looked straight at them when the stepped through the door, it felt vaguely like every nightmare Eiji ever had before he had a big presentation in school or a competition, he felt the need to check if he was naked or not.

Everything felt like it came from a cheesy vintage movie; the bar, the tattoos, the weapons. Eiji was a bit disappointed and a lot bewildered when they found out the middle man was no man at all but instead a cheery kid who couldn’t be over twelve called Skipper.

“Are you coming or not!” He called loudly, startling the Japanese men into following him further into the room. Where all kids in America this fearless? Eiji felt in shock. They walked on, ignoring the threatening looks until they came to the pool tables, next to them was one of the most beautiful men Eiji had ever seen. It was kind of ridiculous how handsome he was, his bright blond hair and pale skin casted an acute contrast with their environment, if not for his eyes, they were the prettiest green, reminding Eiji of the Izumo coast yet they burned with fire, threatening, like a wild animal ready to pounce. “Here they are Ash! Your guests from Japan” And then he scampers off.

“Hello, it’s nice to meet you” Ibe-san takes the initiative once it’s made clear Ash Lynx won’t talk to them first “We are photographers from Japan, thank you for agreeing to meet with us” He bows and Eiji copies him, remaining silent. Ash Lynx is nothing like what he had imagined, even though he had no idea what he had imagined. “We would like to ask a few questions about your gang”

“What do you want to know” And wow, ok, even his voice was attractive. It was intense and deep, but not guttural, it sounded like he would have a soothing singing voice, an annoying part of Eij’s brain supplies. Eiji bets he could sing, he was beautiful, powerful and had a nice voice, why the hell wouldn’t he be able to sing too?

He is soon enough delegated to dealing with Ibe-san’s equipment; he was an assistant after all, when Ash Lynx himself talks to him.

Well, not to him, more like about him, but still. He feels all the awe and nervousness in him die the second he hears is a remark on his age “I’m older than you” He says petulantly and puffing his cheeks, neither helping him look any more his own age.

Perhaps is because that ripped a laugh out of Ash o maybe it’s because those green eyes are still on him, but he begins feeling brave, brave enough apparently to ask a gang boss in a bar in Manhattan if the gun strapped to his ripped jeans was real. In the dead quiet that follows his question, Eiji wishes he would have broken his jaw and not his ankle when he fell if only for a chance that would have rendered him mute for life and therefore he couldn’t make an ass of himself anymore. Knowing him though, he’d probably find a way to keep on doing it. Ibe-san looks like if he would drag him from the ear out of the bar if he could, voice panicked when he tells him he shouldn’t ask that.

But Ash is smiling at him, eyes searching and seemingly pleased with what they see because he simply says “sure” and then he is walking towards Eiji, a grin firmly on his face. When he deposits the gun on his hands the first thing he notices is not the weight of how cool It looked but instead is bright purple.

A soulmark.

It feels groundbreaking, somehow, the fact that Ash has a soulmate. Not because Eiji doesn’t think he is some kind of unlovable monster, but because soulmates feel like such an alien concept, stories for little kids in the middle of a gang frequented bar. He wonders who it could be, maybe family, someone Ash is protecting, or perhaps a friend who helps him. Could be a lover. Eiji chastised himself at that train of thought, it’s so none of his business who Ash’s soulmate is, his mother would be so disappointed if she had seen him staring.

Eiji hands back the gun while blushing, thanking him profusely and careful to not let their skin touch.

It’s not until he is taken hostage along Skipper, almost gets killed by order of another blond man named Arthur and after he has to listen Ash get beaten up in another room that his mind stops reeling. What the hell had just happened? He could _die_ ; he could actually die today, on a warehouse, thousands of kilometers away from all his family. He never went to Central Park, never saw his mom again, _he had hanged up on his sister the other night_! And worst thing of all was, he wasn’t alone, Skipper was here and he was just a kid.

“Hey” He calls to him, voice shaky. Skipper looks at him with wide dark eyes, momentarily distracted from the noise from the other room. “It’s going to be ok” Eiji says and great, really eloquent, Eiji. It doesn’t seem to matter because Skipper simply smiles at him, fearless.

“I know” He says back and his voice is unfairly steady “Ash’s here, we’re gonna be ok”

Eiji finds it hard to be encouraged by those words when Ash Lynx is unceremoniously thrown like a sack of potatoes at their feet, bloody and rumpled, he looks much smaller sprawled on the floor like a rag doll.

“Ash!”

“Are you ok!?”

Both their cries are met with a grunt and then Ash is moving, Eiji doesn’t think and he reaches.

Tingling.

Warmth.

And a dark color, greenish blue, like the Izumo sea at night cuts his skin.

He halts and doesn’t react otherwise. This was… a thing that just happened. Alright then, ‘I guess my soulmate is a gang leader’ hi thinks ‘Mom and Dad are going to be so proud’. He is stunned more about the fact that he had another soulmate in the world –His seventh, that couldn’t be right, right?- than about the fact that soulmate was Ash Lynx, that was just a fact, nothing to be done or ultimately world shattering. He doesn’t know a thing about Ash Lynx the same way he didn’t knew anything of his other soulmates, so this was nothing new.

Ash, on the other hand, is a whole other story. His first reaction to the accusing tingling feeling and mark on his right wrist, next to where Eiji touched him to help him up, is to swat Eiji’s hand away.

_Hard._

Ok then.

He leans, back shaking Skipper off of him too, granted, way gentler than he had Eiji “Don’t touch me” He says to the room, but Eiji feels it as though it was said while staring him down. Ash curls in on himself and does his best to cover their mark, Eiji does his best to not feel hurt. “That hurt” He complains like he hadn’t just gotten a new soulmate. Right now, It was Eiji, Eiji was his soulmate and quite frankly he was a bit indignant. He knew he was plain at best –and he was certainly not at his best- but most people at the very least react when they get a soulmate, especially since he was only Ash’s second, he hadn’t gotten used to the feeling as Eiji had, if anything he should be shunning Ash!

Ok, maybe he was being a bit petty, but sue him. With a sigh he relents and plays along, ripping a piece of his shirt to tie around Ash’s injured arm. The blond almost takes his arm away when he feels Eiji touching him but he keeps his hands steady, brown meets green – _trust me, please trust me_ \- Ash relaxes slightly and allows himself to be healed.

So much for their first meeting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, thank you for making it this far! I hope you ejoyed this new chapter, like always I'm more than happy to read your comments, specially if I got anything wrong and you could let me know. 
> 
> Please tell me what you think, I was so anxious of writing the first time they meet.
> 
> I hope everyone is staying safe!


	4. 4

Ash just couldn’t get a good read on this kid.

Not kid, older than him, nineteen – _Yeah, right_ -. Ash would be pretty sure the Japanese boy was lying about that if it weren’t so terribly obvious he couldn’t lie for the life of him, the boy –Eiji, was it? - was the picture of sincerity, Ash could tell exactly how he felt by his posture and knew exactly what he would do next by the smallest tells on his body, he didn’t just wore his heart on his sleeve, he carried it on his fucking hands with his palms open and facing upwards. It was fucking frustrating, Ash felt a confusing need to look away from the Japanese boy if only to allow him a modicum of privacy, Ash couldn’t imagine a life exposing himself in such a way and he had been forced to expose himself since as long as he could remember.

It was also frustrating, because even if he knew just by looking at him how scared he was or how his side hurt, probably for being roughen up some by Arthur’s guys, just by the way he leant to one side instead of the other, Ash still couldn’t figure him out. Because surely this kid –He didn’t care he was older, he was tiny and sort of pathetic looking, all rumpled and terrified- couldn’t be his soulmate, like… _C’mon!_ How could that happen!?

Ash wasn’t stupid, he might be a skeptic but even he knew you don’t choose your soulmates, it would be a fool’s errand to try and find any reason to them but surely they must make some sort of sense! Shorter was a gang boss just as he was, sure they had had very different childhoods, but they had met in juvie for god’s sake, no matter their upbringing they had found themselves at the very bottom of the barrel, knee-deep in their own bullshit at the same time. Griffin was another thing altogether, but this kid made no sense at all with his small frame, his nervous attitude and his dark eyes, in what universe would Ash need someone like him, especially in a time like this. He was bleeding, bruised up, no one knew where he was and he already had to figure out a way to get Skipper out safe and sound, all after finding out fucking Arthur was in an alliance with Marvin of all people and _on top of all of that_ he had to wave through the mess of having a new soulmate? Cut him some slack!

What God had that boy pissed off to have this luck? The mark they now shared was as good as a target painted on his back and they had gotten it here of all places. If Arthur or Marvin found out they would kill him, not without having their way with him beforehand. Ash shivered with the thought of what would befall the boy if Golzine found out. Gaping wounds and a sunk-in skull would be no more than a scratch compared to what he would get.

Surely Eiji must know by now, after almost getting shot and being kidnapped minutes after meeting him, he must know having Ash’s mark on his skin was as good as a death sentence, a curse to shy away from. So why did he look so dejected after Ash shook him off? Why did he rip a piece of his own shirt to bandage his arm? Was it because he thought Ash was his ticked out of all this? _‘Good luck with that’_ he thought bitterly, Ash had been trying to get out of this scene his entire life.

After Eiji finished with his arm he heard a second ripping sound, he turned to look at the black haired boy and saw him with a second piece of cloth on his hands.

“Your wrist is bleeding” Behind his accent his voice was shaking but his eyes and movements carried intent. Ash knew he wasn’t bleeding but caught up fast enough when Eiji risked a look behind Ash, at Skipper. What exactly was his plan here, Ash couldn’t figure it out, but with the smallest of nods he allowed the Japanese boy to take his arm, and swiftly cover their mark.

“Thanks” When he was about to say more the doors opened and Ash mentally slapped himself, maybe this curse went both ways, because Eiji Okumura had just managed to distract Ash in the middle of a fucking kidnapping. Crap.

Marvin’s disgusting figure casted a shadow on them and Ash sharpened his mind and focused to the task at hand. Seducing an old man in front of a kid and your new soulmate probably wasn’t good, but it was well worth it if he got to beat Marvin up and render him unconscious, stepping on him on his way out for good measure.

Ash ran away from their captors with his two charges behind him, he didn’t allow himself to slow down, no matter how much his body begged him to, every kick and every punch felt fresh and sent pain running through his spine with every step he took, but he had to keep moving. It felt like running through a maze, like a bad scary movie, with the bad guy closing in behind them.

“No way out” Came softly at his back. That was Eiji, barely winded from their jailbreak.

“Shit! And we came this far!” Skipper cursed and kicked the ground in frustration. Meanwhile, Ash’s mid was reeling. How could he have been so stupid?

Think.

Think

 _THINK_!

There had to be a way to get them out, maybe he could convince Arthur’s idiots, scare them or threaten them with retribution. Maybe he would have to give his only clue towards finding out who Banana Fish was in order to negotiate Skipper and Eiji’s safety. _‘I’m going to give it to them and free these two’_ he resolved, setting his jaw with his eyes fixed in the high wall in front of them. It might as well be the doors to purgatory.

Just then he heard rustling, skin against metal and… What the hell was he doing? Eiji had shed off his jacket and sweater; slim frame somehow looked smaller with only his ripped button-down, and he was trying to get the rusted metal pipe off the wall, body falling heavily to the ground when he succeeded.

_Oh, I get it. He’s insane._

Having a soulmate that’s bat-shit made a little more sense than the trembling kid back in the warehouse.

“Woah! I didn’t know you had it in you, Ei-chan! I’ll put up a fight too” And now Skipper was picking up a stick almost half his size, prepared to face whoever came after them.

“That’s not it” Eiji replied, he wasn’t facing the alley where they had come from; he was facing the other way, towards the tall brick wall, brown eyes alive with single minded focus. “I’m going to jump”

Ash had been only half joking when believing him crazy, but this kid wasn’t doing anything to prove his first assessment wrong. “Are you insane?” Ash couldn’t believe his own ears; he went to push himself off the wall, what the hell was going on? Skipper seemed just as perplexed beside him.

Perhaps his soulmate wasn’t mad per say, maybe he was just plain stupid.

Eiji was now right in front of the wall and was using the pipe to dig a small hole in the ground “I jumped higher walls in Japan” Came his reply, his voice now eerily even as he half turned to give them a look that was meant to be reassuring but it only freaked Ash more “I’m a pole vaulter”

“Are you crazy!?” Ash couldn’t stop himself, this was getting out of hand “If that rusty pipe breaks you’re as good as dead!” Leave Ash to have a soulmate with a death wish. On the back of his brain he vaguely thinks of the black line on Griffin’s arm, the broken look on his eyes –Back when he still showed emotion- on the rare instances he talked about his dead mother.

“That’s right! And there’re no mats on the other side!” Skipper sounded about as bewildered as Ash felt, they were both yelling by now. This was ridiculous; they were running out of time.

“So we die here instead!?” Looks like the Japanese had finally found his voice, yelling just as loudly as both of them and turning to look them in the eye. “If I have to die here anyway, at least I’m going to die trying!”

Eiji turned around, standing his ground and leaving no room for argument just in time for Arthur’s people to reach them, but Eiji didn’t mind them, he took exactly four steps back and took a steading breath. Ash felt like he should stop him; keep him on the ground where, even if it wasn’t safe, at least it was close, it was certain, if the Japanese kept both feet on the ground Ash could still try and get him out, as long as no one saw the matching marks, maybe, just maybe…

Eiji started running, his posture straight and strong, it looked like he grew 5 inches, his legs seemed longer taking long strides towards the wall. For a moment, Ash thought he would crash against it, instead, the tip of the pipe caught on the small hole Eiji had dug out, the pipe screeched a terrible sound and bent ominously before straightening itself back up, propelling the Japanese boy with the force of it.

And then he flew.

His body arched and stretched, curving just so to avoid hitting the wall, missing it by a good ten inches and for a moment, Ash could swear –And would swear in the future to whoever asked- that the boy remained static, if only for just a handful of seconds, stuck in the air with blue sky behind him.

Griffin had always been the one with a thing for poetry; he had had a way with words unparalleled to most, unraveling stories from thin air and describing the mundane as if it were the grandest work of art. Ash wasn’t like that, never had time nor reason to do anything beyond what was practical, necessary, even after all the intensive education he got from Golzine -especially after all of that- he wasn’t one to speak in riddles or with over the top fancy words, yet something about the way black hair and a slim frame casted a shadow on them, flying his way towards freedom, the freedom Ash has been chasing for as long as he could remember, made him want to learn, be able to write long paragraphs about it, describe it in detail and in fantasy.

Not even the sound of a body heavily crushing against wood, glass and garbage broke the spell that fell upon him. He is tempted to say getting recaptured is well worth it if it meant he got to see the boy fly and to feel his shadow fall upon him, if only Skip wasn’t with him.

Marvin beating Skipper and him bloody did break said spell, however, whenever he would ask where the Japanese boy disappeared off to Ash couldn’t help himself and simply replied _‘He escaped, like a bird’_ even if that only meant getting hit in the gut and being thrown to the floor for his trouble.

Apparently Marvin and Arthur’s efforts put together allowed them to own a brain cell between them and came to the decision to move them somewhere else. All lights turned on and alarms blared, it didn’t take a genius to know they wouldn’t come out alive from a secondary location, their chances of being rescued before tragedy strikes were slim to none, stalling would do them no good, and his body could only take so many hits, so when a green car pulled up, he resorted to plan A.

“Skip has nothing to do with this” His voice remained cool and unaffected, even if inside he was praying “Let him go”

Everything was dead quiet except for Skip’s exclamation of his name, for the first time today the kid looked scared. It’s after Marvin interrupts him and tries to separate Ash from Skipper that all hell breaks loose. Gunshots and fistfights, general screaming, those are the sounds that gave Ash a small amount of hope that maybe, just maybe they’ll make it out of this.

That is, until Marvin points a gun at him. There must be something wrong with him, because only calm and a small dose of relief spreads through his body at the realization that his life is about to end. The only thing that really annoys him is not the soulmates he’s leaving behind or the mystery of Banana Fish, is not even the catatonic brother hidden away, no the thing that actually bugs him is that it’s fucking Marvin. That disgusting fuck would probably get off on the memory of pulling the trigger.

He would take that a thousand times over what actually happens, he is certain of it as he cradles Skip’s limp body on his arms. It’s like white noise, Ash can barely see or think, only knows he is babbling, begging for him not to die, begging for tears and blood to stop flowing from the small boy’s body.

“ASH!”

Shorter. That’s Shorter. Suddenly there’s sound in the world again, kind of as if someone had pressed the unmute button on a control remote and Shorter’s voice at his side is not the only thing he hears; police sirens closing in and Marvin running away.

No fucking way.

Skipper is still breathing when Shorter reaches them, Ash steels himself and turns away from them, only sparing Shorter a look saying _‘Look after him’_ before stealing a car and chasing after the monster who did this.

When he runs into a room, vision tainted red, and sees Marvin already dead and a gun at his feet he knows he’s screwed. He doesn’t even get to fully savor the sight of his guts spilling red and his eyes bulging out, his face forever frozen on an expression of complete terror.

Shit.

No matter how much he struggles, hands pin him down, strategically placed over his wounds in an attempt to tame him through pain, his screams falling to the deaf ears of the grownups in the room that only care about themselves. It feels way too familiar. Turning around and looking away is all he can do when the cop, Evanstine, plays his movies back to him.

As if filming them once hadn’t been bad enough. It feels as if Ash is not on command of his body, he’s shaking before he even notices it, sweating like a pig and too nauseous to think clearly and then, just as fast, he shuts down. He feels nor cold nor hot, remains completely still, barely even breathes, barely even thinks.

Evanstine’s voice sounds like in comes from underwater “How old were you? Ten? Eleven?” Ash knows he doesn’t care.

It’s almost funny. Ash had always been so afraid of telling anyone, after the whole business with his old baseball coach he had been reticent of believing there was anything anyone could or would do to help him if they knew what was happening to him, what his old coach, Marvin, Dino and other countless men had done to his body, yet a small part of him had always wondered; if he had told, if he had ran away from Golzine and into a police station, or maybe even back home, would anyone, at least one person have believed him? Would anyone have done something? He has his answer now and turns out he had been right all along; three cops stand in front of him and they are allowing this, it feels like it’s happening all over again, even if he has his eyes turned away, he can feel every touch, taste every taste. It’s almost funny, only it really isn’t.

“That’s Marvin on the video, isn’t it?” _Stop_ “He did that to you, that’s why you killed him, isn’t it?” _Please stop_ “Answer me!”

He has only enough strength to slap the table with his shackled hands before all strength leaves him and he crumbles back down into his chair, his movie self still being used like a cum bucket right in front of them.

There’s a knock on the door and it all comes to a halt suddenly, the lights turn on and the movie stops. The hospital is ready to take him and he’s dismissed from the interrogation room.

Jenkins trying to play good cop is what does it, his hands feel just as gross and dirty as Marvin’s had on the video. After he’s cleaned and prodded by hospital staff, left on a room alone with guards on the door, as if they would be able to do anything, if Golzine wanted him he could happily come and take him.

Ash is not expecting the other cop, Charlie, to walk into his room, but there is no more strength in him, a long sleep sounds heavenly right about now, instead, he has to suffer through yet another sorry looking cop trying to make conversation with him.

“The boy that was with you” He begins, sitting awkwardly at his bedside, after a long silence gave away that Ash wasn’t going to be the one who broke it. “Skipper? It’s a shame what happened, he was just a kid, I’m sorry”

_‘We were all kids, weren’t we?’_

Skip wasn’t too far away, maybe a couple of rooms over or a couple of floors away, unconscious and connected to a machine that breathes for him, his chances of making it just as good of the ones of him dying, either way, Ash was unlikely to ever see the kid again. Child protective services would make sure of it.

“I’m told he’s probably going to be sent back to his mother’s house, you know… if he wakes up” Charlie informed him, even when Ash hadn’t asked, probably in an attempt of being friendly. What good would it do to return a kid to the place he had ran away from? Ash didn’t know, he feels anger rise up again, but is only a weak flare compared with what he would have felt any other day, still he remained silent. “Social services will keep him safe”

“Like they kept me safe? Any of my guys? Don’t make me laugh. You were in that interrogation room. How much better are you lot from Marvin and his kind?” Ash spits the words out, he was so tired of all the bullshit, none of them actually cared for kids like them. Charlie only sighed and begun to ask about a series of murders in relation to Golzine, Ash refused to dig himself dipper into his own grave and only told him what he probably already knew; they were no match to Golzine.

His brain struggles to turn itself off, but adrenaline still pumps through his veins, his eyes burn with weariness and his entire body aches. He still can’t bring himself to sleep, he distracts himself with a bird resting by his window, grey fluffy feathers puff up while it looks back at him with beady little eyes, its colors and size should render the creature boring and inconspicuous, then why can’t Ash stop envying it?

The door to his room slides open and dark eyes smile at him. A bird takes flight from his window into the sky and another one lands on the chair next to his bed. Eiji looks better with a change of clothes and clean, he’s wearing a soft pink button-up on his shoulders and an oversized short-sleeved white t-shirt tucked in his jeans, the soft colors and bright sunlight streaming into the room suit him, just as the warm smile on his face. That doesn’t stop bitterness and disappointment to fill him, even if his mark was covered under beige cloth that ran from the middle of the Japanese boy’s forearms and hooked on his thump, kind of like fingerless gloves, clearly made to conceal any marks he may have, Ash wasn’t stupid, he knew there was only one reason he was sent in here.

“So you told them” His own voice sounds scratchy and distant, eyes cold. Eiji looks confused and only after Ash sends a pointed look to his wrist does Eiji change his expression to complete bewilderment.

“Of course not!” He sounds insulted, back stiff and soft smile replaced by a furious blush rushing to his cheeks – _Huh_ \- “Why would I…?” He cuts himself off and simply pouts at Ash, put off. He retracts his arms towards himself and hugs his middle, as if the cloth didn’t already hide his skin.

“Why did the cops let you in then?” _Why would they send you if not because we’re soulmates, what are you up to?_

“They didn’t…!” A sigh and he deflates, he’s quiet for a little while and Ash thinks he’s about to leave him when he looks up straight at him. His eyes are really dark and so, so _alive_ “I won’t tell anyone if that’s what you want, in Japan it’s not common to speak of those things, it’s… personal” Red is washed away until only pink remains on his face, all the while his eyes don’t leave Ash’s. “How are you feeling?” And then his voice is all soft again.

“Look who’s talking, there weren’t any mats on the other side, were there?”

A laugh “Ah, no. But it isn’t a problem” His right hand goes to flutter around his left upper arm, where a bandage is tightly wrapped and his eyes go down, thick eyelashes casting shadows on his cheeks, shy.

Suddenly Ash can’t really bear to look at him, so he allows himself to turn his eyes to the ceiling “That jump was incredible, I didn’t know you had that talent” It’s easier to speak like this, calmer. He almost doesn’t catch how the other boy’s voice turns grim.

“But I couldn’t get you and Skip help in time, and now he is…” He stops talking as if he runs out of words to say, but Ash still can’t look at him “I went to see him earlier. There is a police officer outside his door, but Charlie talked to him so I could go see him” He informs.

“Thank god for good ol’ Charlie-“ He can’t help but mutter bitterly, God he hates cops, but he especially hates those who try to play the nice guy, yet allow their buddies to go around wreaking havoc and showing old child pornography in interrogation rooms.

“He was a sleep” Eiji continues, somewhat nervously now “ But he looked good, healthy. I asked the uhm... Nurse station and they said he was out of danger. Would probably be a sleep for a while longer though, so I stayed with for a while, read him a few magazines the nurses gave me”

“You didn’t have to do that. It’s not as if he'll remember” Ash meant to be reassuring; it looks like he failed though.

“He can! - - I-I just...” His voice was loud and then low again, reigning himself in “There are a lot of studies, you know, real ones that say people in comas they can... They hear us and if they hear us then… Maybe they can feel alone. No one can heal if they feel alone; healing is not just physical...” He was babbling, Ash lets himself look at him sideways and takes pity on the kid, obviously there’s a story there, but now is not really the time to ask.

“Can’t argue with that... That’s what you’re doing here then? Keeping me from being lonely?”

“I just wanted to make sure you were alright, you are…” Eiji is looking at him, but his own eyes are trained on the sky outside. “We are soulmates after all, I care…” He is so quiet Ash barely hears him, silence strains between them thick. “Uhm… A-Ash… I was wondering…”

“So Charlie did send you in, huh?”

“W-What!? I- well…” Eiji is flustered once more, hands flailing.

“You’re a shitty liar, y’know?” He decided to laugh, if only as an olive branch, no hard feelings. “He told you about my past, didn’t he?” Ash’s own voice went lower, almost a whisper. “I guess those sort of nasty things don’t happen in Japan”

“I really wouldn’t know…” He looked guilty, Ash thought, almost as if he was to blame for all of this. “I won’t ask you” He said then and his eyes showed the same determination and focus they had when he had flown “I don’t pretend to know you Ash and I don’t expect you to trust me, but you and I are soulmates and that means something to me. I won’t say anything you don’t want me to say to them and I won’t ask you anything you don’t want to answer”

“I envy you” But Ash was smiling, a strange ball of warmth had settled heavy on his chest “You get to make decisions like that. You are free” Birds were using their wings and defying gravity outside his window.

“Free?”

“You know how to fly” He finds himself smiling and pretends not to hear the hitched intake of breath from the boy beside him and they watched birds take flight together. His eyelids became heavy, at last.

The smile doesn't leave his face as he finally rests.

He doesn’t hear Eiji’s tears or his steps outside the room, though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you're all liking the story so far.  
> I wan't to thank everyone who has taken the time to comment and leave kudos, you all literally make my day, I wasn't sure which POV to use in this chapter, I had vague ideas for both options, but I kinda liked how it came out, I hope you liked it too.  
> Anyway, see you next chapter, stay safe!
> 
> *Note: Yes the canon divergence tag is in here because I will not kill off Skipper, I just can't. I know i'ts the canon, but he's just a little kid, he deserves a chance even if it isn't a complete happy, fix it all ending.


	5. 5

There was an article Eiji once read, sitting on his old futon back at his parent's house with the clock reading four in the morning and several pill bottles on his night stand, the metal plate recently screwed to his bones causing pain and inflammation.

The article was short and only followed a small number of athletes from some school in another country but he remembers some pieces of it to the letter.

Apparently 26 out of 100 pole vaulters will get injured, most injuries occur on the lower extremities of the body, the ankle being the first on the list. The article claimed that most of those injuries were completely preventable and happened mostly due to awkward landings on the mat. If coaches taught their students to fall properly, the article went on stating, the sport would be way safer for young and eager athletes.

Despite pole vaulting being a part of his life, of himself even, for as long as he could remember, Eiji didn't know these odds before the injury, though he doubts any numbers on an article would have stopped him from competing, from training way past his body allowed him to or from meticulously and obsessively shaping himself, limiting his own growth with impact training and ruthless diets. He had been too far in.

That's why even if the entire day he crashed to the ground, completely missing the mat and shattering his ankle, had been filled with signals to just turn in early and rest, he had pushed forward, stubborn.

 _'The Day'_ had been a Friday. He was living in an apartment with Rihito, who happened to enter the same college Eiji had gotten a scholarship from, one year before. Rihito had begged and prodded at him for a whole week to get Eiji to go to a college party with him, he even had Dora call him all the way from South America to pester him about it until he relented at the last minute, of course as this things often went he had gotten hammered and made a complete fool of himself, he woke up in their tiny apartment with a splitting headache, on the same clothes he had worn to the party (mostly, because he was mysteriously wearing a shirt he definitely didn't own before that), two different numbers scribbled on his skin (one on his hand and other on his collarbone) and extremely late for his 8 AM lecture.

He had showered and ran to his class in record time but he nevertheless missed the quiz he had forgotten he had scheduled and the teacher didn’t let him enter the classroom at all. He had missed breakfast and had left his wallet on the kitchen table. His stomach growled all through his shift at his crappy part time job, but at least he got to eat the food some costumers had returned to the kitchen.

That would be the high point of his day.

After work he went by the apartment to get his training gear. By the time he got to practice his coach was livid for whatever he chose to be livid for that particular day, practices were always the worst when he was in a mood. It didn’t matter because not much time passed before he was being rushed to the hospital and the rest was history. For a long time he was certain that day was _The Worst Day of His Life._

Until the day he met Ash Lynx.

Nothing against Ash in particular, but new soulmark or no Eiji still had been abducted, seen a man been shot on the head and feel his blood splatter on his face, been beaten, insulted and fell from a great high into a bunch of glass and garbage all while being, in the long run, utterly useless.

Oh and his soulmate didn’t want anything to do with him.

Probably thanks to the ‘utterly useless’ part.

After their talk on the hospital Ash was taken straight to prison and all the involvement Eiji was allowed to have on the case was the one trip to meet Max at the prison along Ibe-san and Charlie where he pretty much begged the man to take care of Ash.

“He saved my life, please look after him” Eiji was mindful to not bring his newly marked arm to his chest as if with that motion he could keep Ash safe himself. The other boy obviously didn’t want the information out there; even so, Eiji couldn’t keep the emotion from his voice and the deep desperation from his eyes. It seemed to be enough to convince Lobo after he took a moment or two to asses Eiji with his blue eyes.

After that Ibe- san put Eiji on an official time out from the whole gang life-style article, at least to the practical part of it, he was still allowed to send memos, take notes and essentially become the entire office’s personal assistant.

It wasn't too bad. Eiji had never shied away from hard work, in fact, he relished in having a task performed well and feeling a slight bit practical, in fact, even though the day he met Ash was objectively worse than the day he fell, the aftermath was by far more bearable, because with the injury he had gone from a life filled with movement and responsibilities to a motionless existence.

It had been unbearable. It had felt like death itself had taken him hostage, paralyzing him, leaving him frozen in time while everything around him kept a steady pace. No, actually it had felt like the word around him had _sped up_.

This was much better.

It didn't matter to Eiji to have to go for coffee runs every 20 minutes, he was grateful for the activity. When he was asked to sort through piles of documents taller than himself or to take notes on meetings or at small interviews that Ibe-san performed was when Eiji's time to shine came, he was diligent, the neat freak he was at heart gave it his all. Even the never ending string of phone calls he was asked to make were greatly appreciated, even if people were often rude he took it as a chance to practice his english.

He went to the hospital every afternoon, and that on itself felt like a deeply integrated routine. Skipper was healing splendidly, sadly, that meant that all too soon he was discharged from the hospital and, according to Charlie, taken into a group home for boys Eiji couldn't visit anymore in the meantime social services decided where they would send him.

Ibe-san had called Eiji's mother, despite Eiji's begging him not to.

"She trusted you to me, that means I'm in charge and I think she deserve to know" Ibe-san's word was final and severe, almost fatherly-like and shut Eiji right up, in the end he only told an incredibly watered down version of what happened and Eiji's mom had been easily appeased after Eiji promised to video call her everyday (or night, depending on where you were). After that came his sister's video call to talk about things they didn't want their mom to hear about.

“So what did really happen?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about”

“You’re a terrible liar, Eiji, you always have been, don’t embarrass yourself now”

And she almost made Eiji forget why he had been so distressed about hanging up on her when he was taken hostage. She also almost made him breakdown and sob to the pixelated rendition of her face on his computer screen, a fraction of him wishing so badly to take the next plane and go straight back home.

Some of that may have shown on his face, because Mika stopped her assault of questions and gave him a break. She talked about how her classes were, her friends and she took her time sharing all the town gossip. Their old math teacher was 5 month pregnant though no one knew who was it from, some kids from Eiji’s old high school were getting married and their elderly neighbor had adopted an equally elderly dog who strayed into her front door and refused to leave. Eiji absorbed all of this information like a man starved who had just been offered a feast, he had no idea how much he would miss Izumo after trying so hard to escape it.

~

His days in New York became exhausting and filled to the brim.

It wasn't enough though.

No matter how bone tired he felt at the end of the day or how much he tried to stop thinking about it, as days went by he couldn't keep yellow hair and jade eyes from his mind. He thought about Ash constantly and he wasn't any closer to stopping, he had no outlet, no one to talk to about this, about this complicated feelings festering on his chest, pressing at his lungs and contaminating his every day.

Distantly he realized that he had never experienced something like this, and not only for the gangs and kidnapping part of it, but because whenever Eiji found himself with a new soulmate it had always been relatively simple. Rihito and Hana blended into his life so easily it was hard to conjure up a memory without them in it, whenever he had tried something new and exciting Rihito had been there to forbid him of backing down, Hana was there all through his school years, her quietness and underlying toughness guiding him, kind of like an older sibling would; Eiji had never been bullied per say, but his sister had had some problems with a group of older girls in her middle school, it all ended almost as soon as it started when Hana got involved. To this day the Okumura siblings have no idea what she did, but they do know no one messed with Mika –Or Eiji for that matter- ever again.

Of course Mika and Eiji had always got along perfectly, even if they fought to the death and annoyed each other like it was a sport, they were a team. So were he and his oba-chan once upon a time. With Dora was a bit more complicated, but not really, they would talk every week, share videos of their training, the fear of not being good enough.

With Ash, Eiji had no clue. They appeared to be as different as two people could be and, conversation at the hospital excluded, Ash didn’t seem to like Eiji very much. Yet, Eiji couldn’t stop thinking about him

He thought of him in that prison, alone and at risk, he thought of him slapping his touch away and of the smile, that gorgeous, heart wrenching smile he directed at Eiji in that hospital room and Eiji had been so ready to touch, had felt inclined to hold his hand, touch his mark or his face, fuss over wounds and rearranging his pillow.

He had heard once or twice about that feeling of longingness that came with a new soulmate, the two people often had a need to stay close in some way or another. When confronted to Ash Lynx’s indifference he had felt fragile and needy and so terribly useless.

And now, when he was alone and the only thing left of Ash was his mark tattooed to his skin, the feeling remained.

Arthur had taken over Ash's territory and the Lynx's gang had scattered, hidden until further notice. Ash was in jail and had already been sent to the hospital wing of the prison after an apparent fight. Eiji wanted to scream when he heard - _useless_ \- but instead he acted unaffected and went on with his day, at the end of their shift he rode the subway with Ibe-san quietly and kept up the facade for just enough time to reach his bedroom, close the door and for hyperventilation and panic to take over.

He used every trick his doctors back in Japan had given him, but in the end he had to retort to the anxiety medication he had been prescribed for emergencies.

Either way he had gotten used to this routine, found it comfortable even.

That is, until Charlie visited again.

“Could I have a word with you, Sunichi?” Eiji still couldn’t get used to people just using their first names, it felt like when someone stands a tiny bit too close to you, hence disturbing the small circle of personal space you have been used to having all of your life.

“Charlie! Of course” Ibe-san stood from his desk and glanced at him, Eiji who had been staring outright from behind the newest pile of documents he had to sort through, fought his instinct to avoid his gaze and locked eyes with him, defiantly. His mother would surely slap him on the back of the head for being disrespectful, but he was at his wits end and Ibe was adamant of keeping all information regarding Ash away from him. “Let’s talk in the cafeteria” He said evenly and Eiji felt like screaming.

“Actually, I need Eiji to come too” The redhead said looking at him now too. Eiji was up and beside them in two seconds flat, really trying not to gloat at Ibe-san’s defeated face.

The two adults chatted amicably in front of him while getting to the cafeteria and then in line to get their coffees and all the while Eiji felt like he was about to explode, he was desperate for new information, was it good news? Was Ash getting out? Or were they bad news, maybe a new lead on the case?

“Ash asked to see you” Charlie’s words felt freeing, like flying over a brick wall with the sun on his back. Because maybe, just maybe, Ash actually wanted him, maybe his soulmate wasn’t rejecting him.

Ibe-san protested, but in the end it all came down to the case, Ash had information but he refused to talk to the, Ash had asked for Eiji so they would provide. Going back to the prison felt oddly joyous, even if Ibe-san refused to leave his side and ended up sitting on the same table with them while Charlie was loudly talking with Max Lobo.

People looked at them, but Eiji only had eyes for the blond boy who came into the room. He was skinnier, if that was possible, some bruises were visible, but his soulmark wasn’t. Ocean green hidden under bandages. Eiji felt a small pang of jealousness, an ugly feeling that in the end came down to him feeling insecure when he saw the other mark, the bright purple one on Ash’s other arm bared for all to see. All of that flew away from his mind when jade eyes looked into his and a small smile formed on Ash’s lips.

“I’m glad you came, Eiji” His heart stopped and he couldn’t control his own smile, his sister would kick him under the table and tell him to ‘chill’.

“I was happy to hear you wanted to see me, especially…” And he suddenly didn’t feel as happy, shame was closer to what he was feeling and Eiji ducked his face and looked to his own hands laid on the table, soulmark covers snugly set on his skin. “Especially after what happened with Skip, I was not allowed to visit him anymore and I do not know where he is now, it is all my fault that he…”

He choked, his self-deprecating train of thought cut short when Ash stood up and sat beside him, looping a heavy arm on his shoulders, immediately blood rushed to his face and he wasn’t sure if he loathed or of he was glad Ibe-san was sitting on his right.

He should be happy, right? Isn’t this what he had wanted?

Eiji had been so desperate to have any closeness, but this felt off, somehow. The smile the blond sent his way was nothing like the hospital one, the friendly tone felt plastic. Actually, Ash himself felt plastic, his yellow hair, green eyes and garish orange jumpsuit were too bright, his personality too loud in the small grey room. Eiji knows the way soulmates are often portrayed on movies or novels wasn´t quite accurate, books and songs always told you how this instant connection was formed the moment skin touched skin and they were therefor united, never to be pulled apart, movies showed how a couple fell in love saying the actual “L” word out loud a day into knowing each other all because a line of color formed on their wrists.

That just wasn’t true.

Despite what Eiji’s younger self would have wished for, more often than not, there wasn’t a magical connection with a soulmate the second after meeting them, you didn’t just happen to know everything about them and you’re probably not gonna like them right away, even less love them. Relationships take effort and soulmates were no different and, even if they had gone through something traumatic together, Eiji didn´t know Ash.

That said.

“Don’t worry, you will get out soon” This felt wrong.

Eiji stood facing Ash and gave a step back to regain his personal space, smiling despite himself, hoping to wrench an honest expression from the lynx.

This felt so wrong.

“Yeah” Ash took a step closer to him. “I’m real glad you came alone today, Eiji” His hand moved towards Eiji, he saw it coming yet he still jumped when it landed on the side of his head, touching –No, cradling his face, long pale fingers waving through his black hair.

“Uhm, ri-right” His heart was beating out of his chest and his eyes felt like they would jump out of their sockets trying to stay glued to the spot where their skin touched.

Why did this feel so wrong?

“Come alone next time, ok?” Ash’s voice was silky soft and way closer to Eiji’s face than what he was comfortable with, a puff of breath brushed against his cheek and it smelt like tooth paste.

He barely has time to sputter nonsensical sounds when Ash’s lips were on his, his hand grasped the back of Eiji’s head and tilted it back making it easier for Ash to breach Eiji’s mouth with his tongue. And hadn’t this been what he had been asking to?

Distantly, a part of his brain simply says that no, this wasn’t it. Sure Eiji wants to know him, he wants to spend time with him and help him, he wants to be his soulmate and slowly discover where in Ash’s hectic life Eiji belonged, where the gang boss who had saved him would fit in Eiji’s boring little life. He didn’t want this kiss, his first kiss, to feel so-

Plastic.

There was plastic on Eiji’s mouth, small and rounded. His eyes shot open and met green and finally- Finally- he felt like he saw Ash, like a smoke curtain had been lifted, they separated and Ash’s hand dropped from his hair to lie meaningfully on his shoulder. If the shock of it all hadn’t rendered Eiji speechless the look on Ash’s eyes would have, the carried a sort of heaviness on them and all Eiji could do was agree.

Eiji ached with want to prove himself. _‘Let me do this, whatever this is, let me be useful’_ It almost scared him how fast his mind raced to that decision; it had been a long time since Eiji had jumped without hesitation.

“See you soon, sweetheart” And that plastic look was back, a sly smirk on Ash’s lips that squeezed his battered heart even further and, because the kiss hadn’t been enough apparently, Ash grabbed his ass and walked away, waving like a man without a care in the world.

“Ei-chan! Are you ok?!” Ibe-san sounded scandalized and hovered around Eiji like an overbearing mother.

Eiji was _confused_.

A hand flew to his mouth and suddenly the small plastic felt huge sitting on his tongue. He barely choked out a weak _‘bathroom’,_ left hand awkwardly gesturing away and it was all Eiji could do not to sprint out of there.

In the car ride back, Ibe-san and Charlie talked most of the way leaving him to sit in the back in silence, they shared a look when Eiji had come back from the bathroom and decisively didn’t ask Eiji about it. Eiji was grateful, he needed the quiet to think, to try and make sense of all of it.

By the time Charlie dropped him and Ibe-san in the apartment he realized there wasn’t much to think about, actually. This was his chance to be useful, to play the part he was meant to play on Ash’s life.

Before the blond boy with cat-like eyes had come into his life he had been close to all his soulmates, all of them great friends and mentors in their own way, so it took Eiji a while to realize that didn’t mean Ash had to be the same. Eiji knew he could be naïve, but even he knew he was privileged; only nineteen and he already had seven soulmates, even if only five remained alive it was a good number, almost unheard of. As a kid it had bothered him, it felt garish and gaudy to have so many colors in such a small and quiet town, his grandmother had told him he shouldn’t feel shame for it was a blessing, his mother had simplified the feeling and told him it meant he would be well loved throughout his life. Mika had called him a slut, earning his dirty laundry thrown at her face. He didn’t really know how he felt about it now, part of him wished it would stop, wished the gods to stop giving out pieces of his soul to every stranger who crossed his path, but if it was truly a blessing, he was glad to give the world back

Even if his friends and family had never said so, Eiji had always felt a little bit like a burden, he was certain that he was the one who benefited way more out of his relationship to them than the other way around, in his best days he had been distant, always busy between family obligations and pole vaulting, on his darkest days he had been nothing short of a black hole, he will never forgive himself for the strain he had put upon his mother and sister after his injury, or for the wall he had built to keep Hana, Rihito and Dora away.

This task Ash had given him felt like retaliation. This was his time to just give and who better than the boy stuck in jail unfairly to be the recipient of this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm already working on the next chapter, I know this one is a little slow and I'm actually planning on speeding things up from now on, so I'll try to get the next one out as soon as possible.
> 
> Anyway, please tell me what you think!! Any comment is deeply appreciated.
> 
> Thank you for taking the time to read, please stay safe!


	6. 6

There was a Japanese kid in Chinatown.

The news got to him pretty much the second the kid set foot on his territory and not because it was a particularly noteworthy thing, Asian people came by all the time and he could get why. If Shorter hadn’t been there practically all his life, he probably still would have found his way home; Chinatown was a sort of haven for people like him in the midst of traditional American landscape.

No, it wasn't because he was Japanese he stood out, but more like everything else about him.

About 5'7”, looked to be around 16 years old, twitchy, lost, dressed weird and Ash sent him. That was the description and boy did it fit.

By the time the Japanese kid arrived to his sister's restaurant they had known he was coming for exactly three minutes and forty seven seconds and Shorter was already in character. Nadia was the one to greet him, though, to see if he was immediate danger; there was no one's judgment he trusted more than his sister’s and apparently it took her all of 10 seconds of meeting the kid to give her all clear about him.

Not dangerous then.

If anything, Shorter felt like protecting him, he was kinda cute, in a kicked puppy sort of way, short and fidgety, floppy hair, his pink glasses were low on his nose and his equally pink jacket slipped down one slim shoulder. Somehow the word _threatening_ didn't come to mind as the kid -because, honestly, he couldn't be more than 15 or 16, what was Ash _thinking-_ all but slumped on the table.

Shorter grabs a bowl of soup from the kitchen before sneaking up on him, if he had to crack this kid he might as well feed him while he was at it. The boy jumped from his sit and kept up the twitchy persona, he looked anxious and clearly not from Ash’s gang; the feared leader from Manhattan might be an enigma to most, but Shorter knew him well enough (if he did say so himself) and Ash wouldn’t send anyone he didn’t absolutely trust Shorter’s way, especially with how tense things were.

In the end, getting the truth out of the young Japanese wasn’t a problem, he was desperate to find Shorter claiming that Ash himself had sent him, and so confirming Shorter’s suspicions; Okumura Eiji, the boy who had been kidnapped with Skipper and had alerted the police of Ash’s whereabouts, he looked so miserable when Shorter told him (In his ‘Chang’ costume) that Shorter Wong hadn’t been around for a while that he felt almost tempted to reveal himself.

“Do you at least know anything about a Dr. Meredith, then?” The Japanese’s big dark eyes were shining, grasping for straws.

“I’m sorry, boy, I can’t help you with that” Shorter smiled not unkindly, but his tone clearly marking the end of the conversation, he knew he had promised Nadia to lay low for a while, but she wasn’t his only soulmate. Shorter needed to get going and he needed this kid far away, he clearly had good intentions, but when push came to shove he wouldn’t be any help.

Shorter made to stand up when a couple of hands grabbed his arm.

“Wait!” Eiji’s eyes were round and open wide, he let go of Shorter’s arm almost immediately but kept his own halfway raised as if to grab at him if he tried to get away again. Shorter’s eyebrows went up in surprise

_Huh… maybe there was some backbone in this kid after all_

“I’m so sorry!” He exclaimed bowing his head repeatedly.

_Maybe not._

Eiji gave him an odd look then and suddenly Shorter was the one who felt studied, almost black eyes scanning him.

“I know there must be things you can’t or won’t say” He spoke quieter now, but not any calmer, his voice wavered with emotion as he held eye contact with Shorter and all at once he felt a gush of air leave his lungs, something heavy setting in its place “But you have to help me, please… I made a promise to Ash that I would give my message, he trusted me and I can’t…”

Shorter loved Ash, he really did.

Well, as much as you can love a mean old man in the body of a freakin’ Calvin Klein model who was the embodiment of trust issues. But at this moment, watching as this poor Japanese boy trips over his words, he really wants to smack Ash.

“Look, kid. I’m sure he’ll understand, you just have to stay out of this, alright? I’ll…” Shorter considered his options, lowering his voice “I’ll try to push your message through, OK?”

Shorter wasn’t the most eloquent or the most passionate speaker, as his sister was always so kind to remind him, but he could be nice, he was a nice dude! So why the hell did Eiji look like he had kicked his pet puppy?

Eiji’s hand went to his own wrist in a sort of protective way and it was the first time Shorter noticed how he wore his arms covered. He had seen these things around Chinatown, even if many of the people here had been born in the U.S like Shorter, plenty of them liked to keep old traditions from the motherland, and even if Shorter wasn’t like that, he knew of these weird fingerless gloves-like items used in some countries to hide soulmarks.

Eiji had both his arms obscured with covers the color of his skin, or close enough for Shorter not to notice right away. His hand had flown to his wrist the moment he knew he couldn’t do what Ash had asked of him. Ash, who was basically paranoia made human and who had sent this green boy, this stranger, deep into Chinatown with a very important and secret message and covers over his soulm–

Oh-

Oh, _fuck_

He was almost too startled to see a man a couple of booths down furiously tap into his phone and taking his leave. He wished he could just make a call and have that man on his grasp before he could even leave Chinatown, but he was hiding, he couldn’t reach any of his guys in fear of giving up his cover, so he had to go, Shorter had to follow him as fast as possible and get to Dr. Meredith to retrieve whatever it was Ash wanted him to and _he had to get rid of this kid!_

Not any kid, Ash’s soulmate.

Shorter can’t help the way his eyes go big for a second, he takes in the kid in front of him all over again and he wants to laugh; If there was anyone out there who looked any more as Ash’s complete opposite Shorter couldn’t imagine it. Leave it to Ash to have the worst possible timing to find his soulmate, and for him to be this… this boy…

“Go home kid” Shorter says seriously before going to the back and ripping his costume off, setting off to find this Doctor, he doesn’t stay to see the way Eiji’s shoulder’s drop once again, he just have to know he stays safe. The last thing Ash Lynx needs is a dead soulmate.

Of course, life doesn’t really care for what Ash Lynx needs, because by the time he manages to find out Dr. Meredith’s address and actually get there, Arthur and his goons already have the doctor, his assistant and Eiji Okumura kneeling in the floor and pointing at them with their guns.

Shorter barely even thinks about the doctor, he just knows he needs to (at least) get Eiji out if this alive. He is so focused on it that he honestly didn’t notice when a skeleton of a man walks, or rather, stumbles into the room. Dead eyes and sickly frame makes what might once have been a handsome young man look like a specter, a vision that makes the ginger man with glasses scream and wave his gun around like a mad man.

It was no surprise when he ended up shooting the phantom man in the chest.

What was a surprise was when Dr. Meredith said that he was Ash’s big brother, the man bleeding to death on the floor was Ash’s only family as far as he knew.

_Great._

Eiji looked distraught, he collapsed against the wall outside the room and Shorter crashed beside him. The Japanese boy’s hands were shaking; there was a splatter of blood on his face as well as some bruising forming near his collarbone and some smaller ones smattering his uncovered shoulder and the underside of his jaw that looked eerily like finger prints. Shorter felt anger rise to his throat, he felt utterly incompetent.

Eiji raised a trembling hand to tug at his pink jacket, effectively hiding the bruising and only then did Shorter realize he had been staring. He reprimanded himself and forced his face forward, the excruciating silence that followed could only be his punishment.

“I wonder if Ash’s brother is going to be good” Came a small voice at his left, Eiji was looking down, hands now deep on his pockets. Shorter absentmindedly noticed how his accent sounded thicker than at Chang Dai now, more tired.

“We have to leave that to the Doc” Said Shorter “I’m just glad you’re alive” And maybe he was tired too, because he felt like he had no filter anymore.

“But they took the bottle, I was supposed to give that to you” Eiji replied, guilt dripping from his every word.

Shorter had always been the little brother, his sister a far steadier presence than any other since the moment he had been born up till today, she was good at these things, at comforting, and while Shorter wasn’t bad at it per se, he didn’t have that big brother vibe, that thing that seem to calm down everyone around him and that could make the most daunting of situations feel safe.

He did, however, manage to shock Eiji out of his black cloud by discovering himself as ‘Chang’ and the shocked laugh that escaped from the Japanese’s mouth when he donned his fake mustache on felt like price enough and maybe…

Maybe he could see it. They looked like total opposites, but if fierce loyalty and insane recklessness weren’t the perfect descriptors for Ash Lynx (and apparently Eiji Okumura), than he didn’t know what they were.

Shorter debates on trying out small talk or perhaps edging the other boy to go back home for the night, but Eiji looks dead on his feet, sliding down the wall and resting his head on his knees and, as crazy as it may seem, this might be the safest place to be right now, what with Arthur’s people around, Shorter didn’t feel comfortable sending Eiji on his way on his own.

For now he felt content waiting, sitting next to his soulmate’s soulmate and standing guard.

It wasn’t long, though, until the doctor walked out of the room looking tired beyond belief with an increasingly swelling black eye and blood stained garments. The Japanese boy jumped in his spot when the door opened and his eyes went oddly solemn when Meredith made his way towards them, if Shorter had to take a guess, he would say this situation was somewhat familiar to Eiji, if that made any sense.

“He’s alive” was the verdict from the doctor and he felt himself sag in relief “He’s in no good shape, though so don’t get your hopes up” _crap, was this like all doctors talked?_

“Is he going to make it?” Eiji’s voice sounded serious and with way more confidence than all his other conversations with him before.

“He lost a lot of blood and the bullet did a number on him, besides, he was in pretty bad shape way before all this” Doctor Meredith droned on. “He might make it, but making it through the night is crucial” Shorter and Eiji shared a look and he felt dread on his skin, like cold water seeping into his clothes and making his skin sticky. Doctor Meredith sighed “He’s sleeping right now, I need to go lay down for a while, but hey, who knows? He’s a young man and he’s Ash’s brother for god’s sake, if someone is gonna make it through this it might as well be Griffin. You both can stay here, if that’s what you want”

With that he left them there, leaving the door to his office open behind him.

Shorter stood up groaning and feeling his gun on his waistband by reflex, he extended his other hand to the boy still sitting on the floor; his were eyes open wide and trained on the door. It took a moment or two for Eiji to snap out of it, but Shorter wasn’t in a hurry, when Eiji took his hand he pulled and noticed how little Eiji weighed, that added to the fact that he looked pale and honestly, a little frightened so Shorter left him to have his moment and went inside the room.

Once inside Shorter made a face and felt the burning need to punch something, unfairness tasting bitter on his tongue. If the doctor hadn’t said it himself, he would have never believed this man was Ash’s brother. For all he was in real life, at least on the outside Ash looked like a fucking cherub with his golden hair, his bright green eyes and his fair skin; the man on the bed looked like a corpse, the only thing that convinced Shorter he was alive where the monitors he was connected to, because his hair looked ratty and dry, his skin graying and lips cracked, his body looked like it had been drained, like a balloon loosing air. There was close to no muscle on his body and almost no fat either, but what was worse was his face, or actually, his expression which even in his sleep showed so much pain.

This man should look nothing like Ash, yet if he forced himself to look he could notice, the way their noses were shaped the same as were their eyes, he even looked to be around the same height as his friend. It was hard to look at him for too long, Shorter’s eyes traveled from the cables and tubes, to the old looking machines doing their best to keep him alive and finally landed on his arms and sadness seeped in. Not a bit of color painted his skin, the single black line cutting his wrist was the only bright thing about him

A sharp intake of breath resonated in the dead quiet room and just a couple of steps behind him was Eiji, Shorter almost wished he had stayed outside, because he looks like shit now, his eyes were bulging out and his mouth was parted in shock, his hands half way up his face as if to stifle a gasp.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost, everything alright?” Shorter tried for a smile; he knew it was a hard thing to look at. Eiji’s head whipped in his direction and for a moment he looked lost, far away.

The Japanese boy shook his head as if to get a thought out of it before returning his pathetic attempt of a smile with an even worse one.

“Yes, I’m sorry he just…” His eyes slowly trailed back to the man on the bed “He just reminded me of someone”

And wasn’t that odd? Eiji didn’t look like the type of guy to hang around corpses and dying people, but then again, he also didn’t look like the type of guy who would be Ash Lynx’s soulmate, Shorter felt confused by this kid, but he could see why Ash would trust him

Eiji wasn’t easy to understand, but he was really easy to read, an open book could be a way to say it, or maybe sincere was better, he looked honest, every emotion clear on his face and Shorter felt inclined to just believe him, and he didn’t get to be the boss of Chinatown by trusting every kid who came his way.

“Ash is going to be very upset when he finds out” he continued and Shorter snorted.

“Upset won’t cover it” Eiji’s shoulders hunched forward so Shorter backtracked immediately “But hey, he’s gonna understand, there’s nothing we could’ve done”

Eiji hums distractedly and keeps on staring at Griffin before taking a tentative step on his direction, if you asked Shorter, he’d say Eiji looks more scared now than when he was on his knees, hands tied behind his back and Arthur had a gun to his head.

The boy takes what sounds like a steading breath before going up to Griffin’s pillow and to Shorter’s shock, starts fluffing it, he then takes hold of a chair and plants himself on Ash’s brother’s bedside. It takes him at least a whole minute to notice Shorter is staring at him again and his cheeks go from pale to pink really fast.

“Um, it’s going to be a long night, so…” He makes a vague hand gesture to nothing in particular.

“You sure you don’t want to get some sleep? I’m sure Doc has some place for us to rest” Shorter asks.

“Oh no, I couldn’t leave now” He replies fast, looking surprised, like the thought really hadn’t crossed his mind “Besides, I kind of… run away? I live with my boss and he really didn’t want me to get involved so I would rather not see him right now” He chuckled nervously and absentmindedly scratched the back of his head.

_He ran away? This kid’s really full of surprises._

“Wait… Boss?” Shorter gave him a once over “Aren’t you a little young to have a boss?”

And just like that Eiji’s face turned into one of annoyance, giving Shorter a look of absolute defeat as his cheeks went from pink to full blown red “I am not! I’m nineteen”

“Woah, for real? I didn’t know, man. Sorry!” He raised both his hands in mock defense, he felt inclined to not believe Eiji (tough it _would_ make more sense for Ash to send a nineteen year old into this suicide mission), but he would let it slide for now and decided for a change of topic “Say, would you like some change of clothes? I guess my cover is mostly blown, so I could get someone to bring something for ya”

It was then that Eiji took notice of the blood stains on his clothes and the whole on the knee where the fabric must have ripped when he was thrown to the floor.

“Oh! That would be very nice, thank you!” and he shot the brightest smile Shorter had ever seen, which was somewhat disconcerting given that it was sent from such a tired face. He felt blinded for a second before he got his bearings and left the room, phone already in hand and well…

Shorter had never found himself on this situation, he was his sister’s and Ash’s only soulmate, and they were the only ones he had too, he had never known what sharing a soulmate was like, though intellectually he knew it was a fairly normal thing. Honestly, Shorter had thought if either Nadia or Ash got new soulmates he would feel a bit jealous, which was awful and uncalled for, but the little brother in him liked having things (and people) that were his own, that’s why he was fiercely protective of his gang. But after all this mess, after seeing Eiji for himself his mind was completely changed, if anything he felt closer to this kid just because they had something so important in common.

Besides, Eiji Okumura being Ash Lynx’s soulmate, with his single minded focus and insane recklessness, his pink glasses, bright smiles and gentle looks…

_Boy, was Ash screwed._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so first of all  
> I'm SO sorry fo taking all this time to post! I hope you can understand, my new semester at uni started and everything has been sort of a mess with all this online work, I got uninspired and I kept pushing this behind all my homework.  
> But here's a new chapter and our dear Eiji met Shorter!  
> I hope I can now set myself a better rythm and post again next week, I'll try my hardest.  
> Thank you so much for sticking around and for all the comments, they really help me so much move this story forward  
> I hope everyone's staying safely in their homes!!


	7. 7

It was always a nasty feeling when sun hit you in the eyes and no matter what you do, you can’t ignore it, even if you close your eyes it is still so bright and hot and discomforting, it was like hitting white noise on an old radio, Eiji couldn’t get it out of his mind until it stopped. Thing was, that wasn’t all, annoying beams of light were catching his eyes and at the same time his brain was on fire.

Or so it felt like.

Maybe fire wasn’t quite right, sure it was loud and senseless, like white noise, but it was also quiet and empty and cold, it felt so cold. The sun in his eyes would be a welcome sensation if only they brought any real warm with them, but instead he felt cold and empty and disconnected to himself.

Or maybe he was too connected to himself; to a part of himself Eiji had lost even before he even noticed he had it. His body was in the United States, New York, Dr. Meredith’s office, sitting on an unfairly uncomfortable chair but his mind had traveled and when he looked at Ash’s brother all he could see was _him._

Ito Daisuke had passed away on his sixty eighth birthday on a hospital room near Eiji’s hometown, only the hospital staff on his bedside as he had never married nor had children and he was distanced from his siblings and their families. The only silver lining was the small boy who had given his bare skin color for the first time some mere minutes before it all ended.

Eiji learned all this in bits and pieces through his childhood, but that information was meaningless to him, for the most part he cared for only two things:

  1. \- He was his soulmate
  2. \- He was dead



Names and family trees scarcely mattered when all he could feel for months after his passing was never ending cold or when every so often something triggered the memory of him and Eiji felt his lungs on a vice grip deep on his chest and the only warmth he felt came from the searing pain emanating from the black scar cutting his wrist. Losing a soulmate did that to you.

So Eiji hoped Ash could understand, even if he may never get the chance to tell him, that Eiji had to take a moment and leave his big brother in that room while he went outside and just _breathed._

“Hey” said a voice Eiji could barely hear over his gasps “You alright there, buddy?”

_Don’t talk to me like that_

Eiji hated to be treated as a child, defenseless and fragile when not so long ago he had been flying, high and alone. A heavy hand fell on his shoulder and it was warm and comforting, but it also burned and made him choke on air; his body seized violently to the side and the hand was on him no more.

“I am OK” He sounded like he had run a marathon instead of just going down a couple flight of stairs. His arms went to hug his middle and he refused to turn around “Thank you, but please leave me alone”

Silence met his request and Eiji’s brain reeled, unhelpfully supplying him with self-hatred and disgust _–He’s only trying to help you and you are being incredibly rude to him, he lent you clothes and you ask him to leave, he’s your soulmate’s soulmate, if you are this rude to him no wonder Ash doesn’t want you, you…–_

Shorter let out a low whistle and leant on the wall beside Eiji “I guess I was wrong, you and Ash aren’t that different after all, guess soulmarks know better, huh?”

Eiji whipped his head and stared in shock to the boy next to him, if it were possible, his arms pressed against his sides even more, nails leaving indents on his skin through the thin shirt. Shorter wasn’t looking at Eiji, his gaze was restless, searching far and wide for any possible danger, but they had stayed up all night, the sun that had hit Eiji on the eyes was but the first ray of the morning and there wasn’t a soul near them –It felt like being in the eye of the hurricane, and Eiji could just see the next storm coming–.

“I don’t know what you are talking about” Eiji replied, but it was too late; he had let the silence go too long, his speech came out tense and breathless and Shorter’s eyes finally settled on his, a half smirk painting his features in a much more attractive light. So all Eiji could do was sigh a breath of defeat “Please do not say anything, I do not think Ash wants anyone to learn about it”

 _‘Know’_ a voice reprimanded him inside his head, but he was so tired, he knew he was most likely slurring and making shameful mistakes. Thankfully Shorter let it slide and simply made a zipping his own mouth shut gesture. Sadly, that was where Eiji’s luck ran out.

“So, you ready to go back home now?” Eiji tensed back up and looked at him fully; it wasn’t easy since Shorter was almost a full head taller than Eiji.

“I want to be here, I just need a minute. I’m fine” He was tired, he was cold.

Shorter raised a disbelieving eyebrow at him while lighting a cigarette. Eiji watched enthralled for a moment as Shorter inhaled deep (as if it were fresh air) and then blew white smoke out of his nose.

“You sure? Cus you look like shit”

“Wow, thank you, I am very flattered” He deadpanned and Shorter snorted “I will be OK, I just… It’s just that Ash’s brother reminded me of another soulmate”

“You got two soulmates?” Shorter asked intrigued. Eiji felt blood rush to his face and his first instinct was to feel offended at such a blunt question, but he had learned a thing or two about Americans in his short time in this country and now he knew Shorter wasn’t being rude at all, in fact, it could be said he was being polite and making light conversation. It didn’t mean it made Eiji any less uncomfortable.

“You could say that” Eiji mumbled, not ready to tell this boy he had just met about his weirdly big amount of colored lines on his arms “But, he… was very sick, I met him in a hospital actually” and surprisingly enough, it felt kind of good to talk about him, his family had kept it fairly quiet so it wouldn’t somehow reflect badly on him, the only person he could talk about his deceased soulmate was his Oba-san and he had lost that when she too had passed.

“You mind if I take a minute here too?” Shorter simply asked, no further inquiries, no judgement. No wonder he was Ash’s soulmate; he was smart and strong, but he was also incredibly kind. Eiji felt something small and warm uncurl on his chest and limited himself to nodding.

He forced his mind to drift back to his body, to leave that hospital room and his childhood behind, he had enough things to face in the present to dwell in the past; like Ibe-san’s imminent wrath once he found him, but for now, he concentrated on breathing and on letting the sunlight to warm him.

~

Later that day, he did in fact face Ibe-san’s wrath, though it felt less wrath and more like a mother scolding him. A very strong mother who grabbed him by the arms and shook him like his life depended on it.

Thankfully, Ibe-san calmed down long enough for Eiji and Dr. Meredith to tell him everything about Ash’s brother and the drug that had been stolen from them; the brother and the drug that Ash had asked Eiji to help him keep safe.

For the first time in a while, though, Eiji’s guilt took the backseat, because it felt like everything was starting to fall into place, like they were on the brink of something big, something huge; all those hours sorting through paperwork and reading various reports from Ibe-san and Charlie’s investigation finally amounting to something that made Eiji feel oddly important, like he at long last was catching up in a race he had fallen behind or far too long.

He needed to chase that feeling, he needed to catch up, to understand, he needed to matter again.

So Eiji decided to stay, Shorter had already declared he was not leaving Griffin’s body and the small amount of white powdered drug the Doctor had kept aside before Arthur and his men had come barging in for not even a second. Eiji stated that he wasn’t either, fully prepared to fight Ibe-san on this, but the man only gave Eiji a withering glance before leaving, promising to come back with a change of clothes for him soon.

“Don’t disappear on me again, Ei-chan” He said, serious and on their mother tongue, effectively making Eiji feel both comforted and guilty.

It didn’t matter.

Eiji looked at the injured man lying before him and knew he couldn’t leave his side. There was something on him he recognized, the blueish lips, sunken skin and heavy breaths were all too familiar and here was the thing; whenever Eiji thought of the man on the hospital, guilt was at the forefront of his emotions for many reasons. Eiji felt guilty for meeting him late, for not stumbling into his room earlier, he felt guilty for resenting him slightly for the pain and the cold, but most of all, Eiji felt guilty for leaving him alone in that hospital room when the doctors and nurses had rushed in.

He wouldn’t be making that mistake again, maybe no color erupted on his skin when it met Griffin’s, but there was something joining them, the same way something joined him to Shorter and that was a blond boy with haunting jade eyes that were so sad they made Eiji’s throat close up.

He wishes Ash was here, so he could hold his brother’s hand and talk quietly through the day, hoping somehow he could hear him, Eiji was sure Griffin would appreciate the nonsense Eiji was chatting at him nonstop way more if it came from his little brother, but they all had to make compromises. As he held the hand of the man lying in bed, unmoving, he found himself eyeing his uncovered arms where only a dark black line marked him.

Eiji wondered who that mark belonged to and at the same time felt bitter, as he often did when it came down to these topic. How was if fair for Eiji, unremarkable boring Eiji, to have his skin look like rainbows when people who actually needed them only had a black line and nothing else.

Well, a black line and smudge.

Eiji blinked and paused on his retelling of the time his sister had brought home a stray cat and they had kept it a secret from their mother successfully for three whole months, he was alone in the room with Griffin, Shorter guarding the entrance to the building and making fast calls and sending furious texts.

He could have sworn the skin on the arms of the unconscious man before him was bare, only some runaway freckles could be seen, but now a light stain circled one of his wrists and for a second Eiji felt himself choke, immediately he removed both his covers a mantra of –No, no, no, no, no, no– playing on repeat on his brain –Not again– but no new mark could be seen on his own arms, and he hadn’t felt any warmth, any tingling. Maybe Shorter? They were the only new people Griffin had touched, the only options.

He carefully raised Griffin’s wrist to his eyes and could faintly catch a blueish hue coming from the smudge circling the man’s arm. Although it didn’t really look like a soulmark, soulmarks were bright, even Shorter’s white one contrasted his own caramel skin with a healthy glow. In Griffin’s case it looked washed away, kind of like Eiji’s parent’s had looked the last time he had helped bathe his dad, in fact, all of his dad’s marks had looked faded.

A doctor had explained it, how people who were losing themselves like Alzheimer’s disease sufferers or old people with dementia often lost their marks as their brains slowly deteriorated. Eiji didn’t know what It meant when one came back, he had never heard anything like it, but he guessed it wasn’t impossible and if meeting someone from his past, someone who knew who this Banana Fish was brought a bit of the old Griffin (whoever that had been) back, it would only make sense if his marks came back with him.

Eiji wondered, as he resumed his storytelling –now including how he met a certain blond gang boss– who out there would look down and suddenly see an old mark back on their arm, or a pale version of it, at least.

~

“I’m not going back to Japan! How can you ask that from me now?” He knew he was yelling and maybe slamming his fists on the table was a little much (judging by the foul look the old lady in the back sent him), especially considering the person he was yelling at was his boss and friend who was the sole reason Eiji had anything going for him in life and had met yet another of the people the gods had intended to mark his life, but _come on_!

No arguments Ibe-san threw his way made him budge, nothing ever could, not when he was finally _living_ , not when he had set his mind to this, it was already hard enough to have left Griffin’s bedside. They were now back at Chang Dai, not far from Dr. Meredith’s office, Eiji had changed out of the dark clothes Shorter had lent him and was back on his comfy (Mika-chan approved) clothes and he was already itching to go back, no talk of mafias or dangers could distract him or make him change his mind.

“What am I supposed to say to your parents if something happens to you?” The question felt like a sort of low blow, like Ibe-san’s secret weapon to surely set Eiji on a plane and back to the stagnant existence he had adopted in Japan. Still, Eiji didn’t budge. “It was hard enough to persuade them to let you come” Eiji kept avoiding the older man’s gaze in hopes the guilt trip he was trying to induce on him wouldn’t hit. “Is this really the time for your father to get bad news, Eiji?”

And that did it. Eiji’s eyes shot to Ibe’s, serious and angry. He too leant forward again, calming his breathing “I understand what you are saying and I’m so grateful to you for binging me here, I mean… I needed it” and that almost got him a smile, almost because Eiji once again slammed his fist on the table, startling yet again the old lady in the back of the restaurant “But I’m staying here!”

“You’re most certainly not! You’re staying right here!” and Ibe-san was red with fury and he also hit the table with his palms, the old lady in the back huffed before leaving money on her table and leaving.

“Eiji, Ibe” Nadia Wong’s voice cut them off their little spat and Eiji felt all fight leave his body as he took in her expression. No one with good news carried that expression.

So Eiji wasn’t expecting happy news as he raced through the short path towards Dr. Meredith’s office, Ibe-san following him silently and without a fight, but he still wasn’t ready to walk in on the doctor reading the time of death and turning every machine off, head held down just like Shorter.

This couldn’t be happening, he had only been gone a minute, he had been just a couple of blocks away, he had been there all day and Ash hasn’t come to visit yet, he couldn’t… Griffin couldn’t be dead…

But he was, he was completely still, his eyes were closed and, ironically, this was the first time he saw Griffin at least a little bit relaxed, carefree, his smudged out mark just as faint on his ever paler skin.

Eiji may not have received a mark from Griffin, but he felt the cold envelope him once again, the guilt, the tears burning behind his eyes. He stared at the body half expecting the man to rise, to breath, not able to believe what he was seeing, not able to keep this death from weighting him down. It felt like crashing to the ground when you think the only way you can go was up; once you realize is true, that this is actually happening, something ugly takes ahold of you, never to let go, like a chain to the ground.

Far away from them, in a small prison cell, Ash Lynx felt a cold shiver run through his body and a mildly empty feeling in his chest, a blueish smudge darkening on his skin to look like the faintest bruise.

In a small prison cell Aslan Callenreese felt cold and knew.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1.- Hello again! Im gonna try to make this a thing and post every weekend. Once again I'm so incredibly grateful to everyone who takes the time to read this, leave kudos and especially to the ones who take time off their lives to write comments, you guys literally make my entire week.  
> 2.- Im so sorry for this.  
> 3.- I hope everyone and their loved ones are staying safe! Good luck this week!


	8. 8

“You can kill me if you want. I’m too tired to go on anyways”

Ash thinks those might be the first words that come from Max Lobos mouth that actually make sense to him, Ash too is tired, though he has felt tired for years now, so long that sometimes he actually forgets what it is to not feel drained.

He certainly doesn’t remember that now.

It is odd how somethings can hurt the same twice, if there was any fairness in the world Ash thinks hurt should be like getting measles, you get sick once and then it’s over with. But if there was one thing Ash Lynx knew is that the world wasn’t fair at all, if anything it took any chance to bring you down and then hit you on the ground, so really it should make complete sense to him to feel this empty, this fucking torn up inside, like the rot festering inside himself has come alive one more and he can feel every scar like an open wound.

Griffin was dead.

He wanted to put a name to the feeling it evoked in him; static could do, loud and senseless and empty, he certainly felt senseless, lost, but empty didn’t quite cut it. God, he would pay to feel empty right now, he would take empty over having to process the feeling of losing Griffin. Again. It had been agony when he was a kid and his father took down every picture of Griffin they had in the house, now it felt like a cruel joke; to have gotten his big brother back –If only completely changed– only to have him taken away once more.

He would give anything to feel empty but he didn’t, a spark remained ignited on his chest setting him afire. He wanted this mess over with, he wanted Dino gone and Banana Fish dead.

As a kid he had read that when you are in great amounts of pain your body produced its own analgesics, there was something like that too, deep inside and buried under the ever-growing pile of shit that he had to live through.

Ash couldn’t help feeling like a child when taking comfort from his soulmarks, people like him didn’t deserve to feel any reprieve, not even after losing their big brothers, but Ash knew himself pretty well and being selfish wasn´t something new.

Bright purple and comforting teal shone on his pale unmarred skin and he could almost trick himself into feeling like he had somebody looking out for him and only him.

Like Griffin.

But Ash knew it wasn’t like that. Shorter is the person he las let in closest to himself since he became Ash Lynx and not once he had betrayed or disappointed him in any way, if anything, he went out of his way to make it clear that he had Ash’s back, but the bright purple mark wasn’t the only one adorning his friend’s arm. Pure white bonded him to Nadia, and Ash just knew that if it ever came down to it, Shorter would always put his family first, not that Ash thought any less of him for it, that was just such a Shorter thing to do, Ash wouldn’t want it any other way, he would rather disappear off Shorter’s life altogether before ever endangering his friend’s family.

The point remained though, that he should have known better that to give Eiji this task; the world, it another show its of cruel and virulent ways, had marked them as soulmates, but the reality was Ash didn’t know him yet, he doesn’t know what are his limits or how far would he go out of his way for Ash. Not to say there was a single cell on his body that blamed Eiji for any of it, but rather he pitied him, to have him as a soulmate could only have endangered the boy more. But also, because Ash didn’t know Eiji, he could try to convince himself, when feeling particularly greedy, that maybe his was the only line coloring Eiji Okumura’s skin, and that maybe _–Just maybe–_ that meant that the young Japanese teen could be the person to put Ash first.

It was easy to keep up the illusion when the second he gets released from jail dark brown eyes and black floppy hair rush up to him and he says “Ash! I am so happy you are out!” accompanied by a wide smile that feels more honest than anything Ash has seen in a long time and that immediately turns soft and privet after Ash thanks him, trying to sound as honest as he can muster with Charlie and the Japanese photographer in the same room.

“There are a lot of things I need to ask you” Charlie says in all seriousness and suddenly that daydream comes crushing down, waves and waves of disgust and shame washed over him unrelenting and not even the small warmth he felt emanating from his marks could keep the self-hatred at bay.

Just like that Ads remembers that this isn’t about feeling empty or torn or lonely, it’s not about Shorter or Eiji. This worlds gives him no reprieve to gather himself, it never has.

It’s stupidly easy to go back into the role he has learn to play since coming to New York, Ash Lynx takes over and knows exactly what to do to get what he wants. His looks have rarely made his life any easier, but they do help him sell his act of delicate little brother holding back his tears.

It also helped that he was terribly familiar with this act, but that was nor here nor there.

Everything plays out exactly how he expects it to go, up until Ibe tries to distract him and maybe he was still rattled from jail and Griffin, because he buys it for a second, just a second but it’s enough for Charlie to throw himself and Ash and trying to get the gun from him.

Having two adult men grabbing at him shouldn’t feel this familiar, but the sickly feeling on his stomach and the cold sweat breaking on the back of his neck does nothing to help him get them _off._

Ash barely notices, too busy struggling, but Ibe’s eyes go comically big and his voice sounds breathless when he looks past Ash and chokes “Ei-chan!?”

And then the car is moving and, a part of his brain catches Eiji apologizing to Ibe before hitting the accelerator and sharply turning the wheel of the car, effectively throwing Charlie and Ibe off balance and into the sidewalk. Ash doesn’t lose any time and closes the door.

Ash’s head whips to the boy sitting next to him, ready to have to convince him –or if it came to it, threaten him– into just keep on driving and to not regret this impulse decision, at least not until they had a couple of blocks over Charlie, but that wasn’t the case; Eiji looked not quite calm, but definitely decided, Ash had seen that look on his eyes before, when he had flown.

As he saw him now, taking the car into a bigger street with no hesitation and never once looking back, Ash is starting to realize that perhaps Eiji never stops flying; he just finds new ways to do it.

Ash tries to drag him to the ground, to shake him off and get him to get out of the car, get out of this mess. Ash has been trying to find a way out all his life, Eiji could hop off so easily it made no sense to him that he was still refusing.

“This is my problem too” He claimed, so sure of himself Ash felt tempted to believe him if only it wasn’t mad talk. But Eiji’s shoulders deflated, his grip on the steering wheel tightening as his body slumps forward, black hair obscuring Ash’s view of his eyes.

“Your brother was shot right in front of my eyes” Eiji says lowly and something beneath Ash’s disinterested mask moves, the rot in his chest and the static in his brain startling at those words “All because I was followed after you told me to be careful”

“Japanese people must be masochists, you feel responsible for everything” Ash keeps his voice calm and dismissive, his head screaming at the boy next to him to _Run_ “Have it your way, Geez” He mumbles closing his eyes and resting his arms behind his head.

It’s almost as if Eiji comes alive, jumping in his seat “Really? So I can stay with you?” And why does he have to sound so excited, why does he have to smile so wide and be so open, just when Ash is stopping himself of believing this means Eiji could care for someone like him.

_He doesn’t know what you’ve done_

_He wouldn’t look at you like that if he did_

_He wouldn’t look at you at all._

“But you better look after yourself and don’t get in my way” He cuts him off – _run, leave, go_ – “You’re older than me, aren’t you?”

Eiji goes pink in the cheeks and looks down “Yeah” Ash doesn’t remember the last time he ever even _saw_ someone blushing from anything other than exertion.

Blowing Shorter off proves itself even more fruitless than getting Eiji to go away, no speak of this being his problems to solve and his war to fight would budge Shorter’s stubbornness.

Not for the first time Ash feels two sides within him at war, a lonely lynx hissing at the company, trying to get everyone as far away from him, from the dangers that follow him around, fighting to rule over Aslan, that small part of him that no matter how much he tried would resurface every so often, Aslan who felt hopeful and maybe just a little bit happy at having both of them so fiercely attached to him, at having somebody _care._

As much as he would like to allow himself this selfishness, he can’t keep on dragging him further down this rabbit hole. As they made their way to Shorter’s place, quick and quiet, his mind raced, yelling at him that this was dangerous, this was reckless. Shorter looms over him in height and self-assurance, a stance only learned from years of this life and even he doesn’t know exactly into what he was getting into walking into this fight with Ash.

Ash has no plan, no definite goal, just a vague idea, a nagging need to see it all burn down and so maybe that would make his brother dying worth it, make anything have any sense at all. Shorter probably knows that, though. Since the very first time they met, Ash rarely gives him any more information than needed about who he was or what he did, most things Shorter guesses on his own, sharp attentiveness hidden behind a thick layer of easy-going charm, besides it’s not hard to draw conclusions from a pretty boy that’s connected to a rich old man and that sometimes shows up with odd bruises and a limp.

He wonders if Eiji has put two and two together, by the way he keeps clinging to Ash he figures that he hasn’t; in what world someone so normal and naïve wouldn’t feel sick at the sight of someone like Ash? He was basically a human toilet, full of grime and death and blood dripping from his hands and Eiji should shoot one look his way and start running in the opposite direction.

 _‘_ _You and I are soulmates and that means something to me’_

That’s what Eiji had said to him back in the hospital. Was that what this was all about? Was the Japanese so infatuated with the ideal of a soulmate that he would disregard any alarms that must be going off inside his head in order to keep himself near Ash? He had seen this before; people sloping after their first meeting, running after strangers only to become disappointed.

If that was the case, part of him hoped it happened sooner rather than later, before the boy next to him showed up shot in an alley, hair matted to his skull and life drained out of his eyes, the thought alone left a very cold feeling inside his chest.

~

So, OK

Maybe, Eiji didn’t really know what gang life and activities actually played out, he was self-aware enough to guess it wasn’t quite like the manga his little sister always got him hooked up on or like any James Bond movies he and his dad watched when he was little, but even so he had hoped it was a little more escaping with the boy he just met on a fast moving car _–a stolen car, a stolen car you stole from a police officer–_ and a little less walking silently and quickly through a literal maze of side streets and alleyways. There was a whole lot of walking involved.

There also was a whole lot of Ash trying to convince him of backing down from it all, like a few dismissive words could daunt his will, Eiji had once trained non-stop on a stress fracture for months (and actually won a couple of competitions, thank you very much) before his body had said no more and his ankle had busted underneath him, arguably more impressive, he had once ate an huge plate of Dorayaki he had baked, right in front of his sister just to not admit he had used salt instead of sugar like she had accused him. Ash telling him that he didn’t belong here or that Ibe was probably worried about him wasn’t going to change his mind. Eiji was going to see this to the end and he told both Ash and Shorter so.

“If I go now I not think I could forgive myself” He says almost to himself and almost regrets it as soon as the words leave his mouth. Shorter looks surprised behind his sunglasses and Ash’s eyes remain unwavering on Eiji, both stares feel too heavy and he forces his own eyes down.

“I think…” Shorter begins, cautiously looking at Ash, words tentative “What we’re worried about is that you aren’t thinking this through?” Eiji immediately opens his mouth to respond, to defend himself, but Shorter goes on, hurriedly this time “I don’t mean anything bad by it, dude! Just that…” And then he sighs, giving up “You don’t have to stay just ‘cuz Ash here’s your soulmate, y’know that, right?”

Eiji blushes instantly at the mention of soulmates, his first instinct is to feel embarrassed at such a privet topic, but fights it down. He knows they must think he is insane, Eiji may be oblivious at times, but he is not blind; in the short time he has known this people he has gotten kidnapped twice, not to mention injured and insulted repeatedly _–Like, honestly, what was with that Arthur guy calling him samurai boy every time he’s seen Eiji–_ The point is, Eiji knows he should feel afraid, and he does, he doesn’t want to get too badly hurt, he doesn’t want to _die,_ but he’s also so tired of feeling useless, stagnant.

“I used to be a pole vaulter back in Japan” Eiji says and he knows it’s not what they’re expecting if Shorter’s reaction is anything to go by; the once over he gives Eiji over the rim of his sunglasses is assessing.

“I saw it. He saved my life with it” Ash sounds proud for some reason, maybe even a little smug and shouldn’t that make him feel better? Pride was a good thing, it was way better than Ash rejecting him as a soulmate or thinking him weak enough to merit several efforts to get him to go away, yet he couldn’t feel happy, he only feels heavy, a dread he knows all too well settling in the pit of his stomach the same it used to when his coach would boast about how well he was going to do after he healed, making one sided plans for a comeback that never came to be.

“I can’t jump anymore” He lets out, his voice more distant than he wanted it to be.

“What’re you talking about, ‘course you can” Ash moved forward with a frown marring his face, Eiji noted this was the first time since leaving the prison Ash willingly gets closer to him “Skip and I saw you!” He exclaims in disbelief, in front of him Shorter is watching the whole scene with rapt attention, kind of like a person would a tennis match.

“Not like that, I can’t jump as an athlete anymore” And he wasn’t planning on telling this here, he had expected scheming and secret meetings, maybe a job or two he could help with, this on the other hand felt oddly like a job interview to get Ash and Shorter to let him stay.

Eiji hates job interviews.

“I…” why was English so hard when he needed it most? “I got injured badly, and I was not in good place for long after…” He chokes out and takes a steading breath before continuing “I have another soulmate” He confesses and sharply looks up, expecting outrage, but Shorter is passively paying attention to him, simply absorbing it as another piece of information. Ash’s look is a bit closer to what Eiji would expect from an open conversation about soulmates with someone other than family; he isn’t outraged or offended, but he does look off, sort of disgruntled and maybe a little resigned. Eiji archives that for later inspection and continues before he loses all his nerve.

“She was a pole vaulter too- Is! She is a pole vaulter…That is how we met and she tried, really hard for me to keep competing, it was the thing that joined us the most, but after my injury that was too dangerous, I could get injured again and way worse this time, but she asked me to not give up…” Eiji recounts and shame pours upon him like waves “But I wouldn’t… I was too… I was tired and I gave up…”

“This is not because you are my soulmate, Ash this is because I do not want to give up anymore” And with those words he finally gets the courage to look the blond in the eye “I want to see this to the end with my own eyes”

Ash’s eyes become impenetrable in a matter of seconds and Eiji has no idea what those jade eyes are seeing when they’re looking at him, Ash’s face giving up nothing, so Eiji holds up his gaze and hopes he doesn’t see the desperation lying beneath, the hope.

“Well I guess we all have our reasons, then” Shorter’s back t the cheery tone Eiji has begun associating with him and is so sudden it startles him, making him jump in his sit. “It’s all up to you now, Ash”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I failed miserably in my 'posting every week' attempt but I hope you like this one! In my defense, college is draining me.  
> Also, writing Ash is reeeally hard(??? It also makes me a little sad, like, booy you aren't that alone anymore!! So I had to switch back to Eiji.  
> Once again, thank you so much to everyone who took the time to read, kudo and especially to those who comment, all of you really make my day every time it happens and make staying up till 4 AM writing worth it!
> 
> PS: The world is getting messier by the second so I hope all of you and your loved ones are safe!


	9. 9

The world was shaking around him and everything was crumbling down. It was like the earth itself was trying to implode, no amount of strength his body possessed could help him keep steady and yet, the noise was the worst, loud and muffled all at once and he felt it so deep inside it felt like it matched his accelerated heartbeat. The world was ending. And then he heard it.

“Wake up!”

_I know that voice._

His open eyes were met with darkness, Eiji didn’t gasp, nor did he sat up screaming, instead his body tensed up and he shut down. But his heartbeat felt like explosions inside his chest and went up all the way to his head only, somewhat drowned by the dying rumbling of the truck underneath him.

Wait. Truck- The truck he was inside of, traveling to Cape Cod, in America, a whole different continent from where his brain had transported him, years after the earthquake his dream –or his nightmares more like– reminisced. Eiji fought hard to even his breathing, shutting his eyes and working on relaxing, one muscle at a time. 

_You are not there._

_You are in America._

_You are not there._

_You are on the road to Cape Cod._

_In the back of a smelly truck with Shorter and Ibe, Max and Ash on the front seat. You are **not** there._

“Wake y’all lazy asses up!”

_Ash._

“My lazy ass hurts” Whined a second voice _. Shorter_

His breathing had evened out, his heartbeat no longer choking him at his throat, even the sounds of the truck seemed quieter, every alarm inside him shutting down way faster than he was used to.

Eiji looked over his shoulder in the directions the voices had come from and feels his heart stuck in his throat once more.

It was almost heart wrenching how beautiful Ash Lynx was, all pale palette of bright colors framed with golden sunlight and a blissfully clear sky behind him. That is the same person who just a few days ago had thought it was a good idea to try to assassinate the leader of the Corsican mafia from on top a moving truck in the middle of the city with plenty of people around.

And Eiji had _believed_ him.

He doubted it had anything to do with their shared mark, but instead it had all to do with the fact that Ash draws people to him. At this point Eiji was sure Ash could say absolutely anything to him and Eiji would trust him completely, no questions asked, he could have guided them to any place in the world and Eiji would still be here, waking up in the back of a truck, cold and aching and with drying sweat and grime coating his skin.

And quite honestly, it did feel a little like Ash had taken them to just about any place in the world, Eiji had never even heard of Cape Cod and had even less of an idea of what it could be like, it wasn’t as if Japanese Schools taught too much about US cities and states and all that talk they had about X amount of miles East from NYC made no sense to Eiji. For most of his childhood –And some of his teenage years– he had honestly thought the measurement ‘feet’ was equal to the amount of steps it took to get somewhere. Eiji never claimed to be the brightest student, but also who could blame him? Feet and inches made no sense, damn him for traveling to the only country that used them.

Anyway.

Eiji was in the back of a truck, with Ibe and Shorter, Ash was standing outside waiting for them to step out, but most importantly, Ash was looking at him. Instantly Eiji felt self-conscious and also aware of the sight he must be making; frazzled and wide-eyed, the remnants of his nightmare still mulling around.

But there was no judgement or disgust in Ash’s eyes while looking at him, in fact, they seemed to soften ever so slightly from the tough front he had carried all the way from New York.

That had been happening more and more often lately. Eiji wasn’t sure when and much less why, but somewhere along the lines of Eiji stealing Charlie’s car to help Ash to planning and failing an assassination attempt and fleeing the city together, Ash’s demeanor towards Eiji had… Shifted.

Not always, not too much, but it was certainly noticeable. At least noticeable to Eiji, and if the pointed looks Eiji was consciously ignoring were any indication, Ibe-san had noticed too. Eiji didn’t think he would ever be glad about spending hours in the back of a truck with two other men while running away from real danger, but if that stopped Ibe from trying to have a sort of heart to heart with him then Eiji would gladly take a few more hours. Eiji didn’t feel like talking about it, it felt too fragile still, the way Ash’s mouth would slightly turn upwards when directed at him or the way his green –so green– eyes would sometimes drift to Eiji’s covered arm, just for a second, not even for a moment, but long enough to have Eiji short of breath. If Ibe-san asked, prodded at it, then maybe it could break, and Ash would stop looking. He just couldn’t risk that.

Eiji looked back at him and smiled.

Ash’s eyes moved lower and then he turned to go, leaving way for sunlight to come crashing in and for them to go stumbling out. Eiji took a moment to stabilize his breathing before following Shorter and Ibe-san. The second he transferred his weight to his feet he regretted it instantly as his ankle almost gave up on him, a sharp pain shooting up all the way to his hip.

Eiji felt like an old man, groaning and almost crashing face first to the grass when he jumped off the truck if it weren’t for Shorter catching him. Once upon a time Eiji competed on a cracked bone and high on anxiety and _won,_ now he couldn’t take sleeping in the back of a truck with his clothes and sneakers on without feeling half dead and aching. The sight surrounding him distracted him, though.

Open sky, wide planes of bright green grass and the sea. It was odd how the sight of it made Eiji’s heart shrink both from apprehension and longing. Cape Cod, a small town from so far away, literally a world apart from where he had been born and yet it reminded him of Izumo so much. It felt like being slapped in the face with memories, picnics with Hana-chan and Rihito-kun at _Hanami_ , visits to the beach after school or when staying in their tiny house alone without their parents felt too much for both him and Mika, training sessions with his team mates and his coach until late into the afternoon and long and empty summer days at home. There weren’t any _Sakura_ here to go celebrate _Hanam_ i and Eiji had no idea what memories Ash had left in his hometown, but he couldn’t help but wonder if they weren’t that different from his own.

“It’s so beautiful here” He couldn’t help but say, stretching both arms above his head, feeling the breeze slip through his clothes and refreshing him a bit.

Here it was windier and greener, but it maintained the feeling of a small and secluded beach town and that made a thrill go up Eiji’s spine. To think he and Ash had come from a place that felt so similar, despite the ridiculously different paths their lives had taken, maybe this was a sort of middle ground, perhaps it was like Shorter had said and they weren’t that different after all.

“To think this place is just a few hours away from New York” Ibe-san commented, camera already out and ready, capturing this moment forever.

Eiji felt the lens directed at him, as Ibe-san’s camera often was and couldn’t do more than smile, an honest smile for a change, before the shutter went off and the focus left him, the camera pointing the next thing Ibe had taken interest in.

Smiling felt easier, maybe because he had gotten used to the pictures –definitely more used to it than at the ‘Fly Boy in the Sky’ photoshoot– or maybe it was a leftover of the smile he had given Ash.

As Eiji’s own focus traveled from the camera to the boy who had guided them here he felt that same smile freeze and fall and suddenly the fresh breeze felt freezing and humid, the sun didn’t warm quite enough and a thought came to him. A realization, more like.

Eiji wasn’t sure what he expected to see in Ash’s expression, but it whatever it was, he had no traces of it in his face; in fact, he had no traces of anything in his face. It felt slightly like the plastic-like Ash that had kissed him at the prison, but way worse.

A mask. That’s what it looked like, almost like a picture or a painting, static and carefully blank. Ash wasn’t looking at him anymore, nor was he looking at the sea like Shorter or the clouds like Ibe, not even his phone like Max. Ash looked at the ground without really seeing it, hands in his pockets, the picture of detachment.

Eiji realized there probably weren’t many picnics with friends of visits to the beach in his mind. Eiji realized he was an idiot.

It didn’t take too long before Eiji begun having a slight idea of what the memories Ash had left in his hometown were. There was an awful lot of screaming when they all met Ash’s father and Eiji was stunned, he looked nothing like Ash; The man was big and grey and spoke way too fast with a cadence Eiji had never heard before, in other words, he didn’t really catch all he said, only bits and pieces and the situation escalated too quickly into Ibe-san having to hold Max back from outright pouncing on Ash’s dad for Eiji to concentrate in translations, but he could see, plain as day, that this man was not being nice at all.

“Griffin and I have different mothers” Ash told them as they made their way to the house on the hill, just far enough to be in sight of the dinner “His mom died before I was born and then mine left just after, old man got upset of losing both soulmates and sent me and Griffin to live here on our own”

Eiji’s own relationship with his father was complicated at best and nonexistent at worst, disease and training separating them more than Eiji had cared to admit, but even he knew no parent should sent their kids away to live alone in a secluded cabin just because he had lost a couple of soulmates. Eiji had lost a couple of soulmates and he hadn’t alienated his sister or anything, it was hardly a good excuse for the disconnected way Ash was speaking. Or for the way he smirked almost vindictively in Max’s direction, the older man almost flinching at his words.

“Why you looking so sad? You’re the one who brought me here”

Eiji felt overwhelmed with it, the way Ash behaved gave him whiplash to the point he almost felt dizzy as he took the house in, it was beautiful in a rustic, homey way, almost like his oba-chan’s house was, though this was way bigger. He couldn’t imagine just two boys living here on their own. There was little time to imagine and wondering things, they weren’t here to dissect through Ash’s past, but to find clues.

Eiji might not be a journalist or a gang leader, but he was diligent and he never shied away from work and after weeks doing paperwork nonstop for Ibe-san to distract himself from the soulmate he had waiting for him in jail, he was more than ready to sort through letters, books and photo albums to distract himself of the way Ash looked disassociated and aloof, yet so so pained.

He wasn’t as ready to see a familiar face in one of Griffin old photos from his military days; he had been almost too distracted with the glimpse of multiple rings of color adorning a much younger Griffin (almost as much as Eiji had on his own wrists) one of them matching in color to a mark in Max’s arm, the sight of Griffin bear arms as he laid dying in front of him almost too distracting, but red curly hair caught his sight fast enough.

“Look” He got a knot on his throat, his hands felt sweatier and he suddenly felt colder, he wasn’t expecting this reaction to a simple picture, but the memories that face evoked weren’t pleasant ones.

“Are you positive this is him?” Max asked him slowly after Eiji explained through the small tremor in his voice he hoped went unnoticed. He limited to nod in response.

The man’s name was Abraham Dawson and he lived in Los Angeles.

Now, that was a place Eiji had heard of before, in the TV when his mom watched some police show or another, but he had no clue how far it was, by the way Ash reacted he assumed it wasn’t close by at all. Ash wanted to go right away and Max claimed that it was impossible, Eiji deflated at that and caught himself looking in Ibe-san’s direction questioningly.

“Don’t look at me like that, I can’t back out now” The way Ibe smiled at him felt almost knowingly before turning serious once more “Besides, Going back to Manhattan would be too dangerous now”

And so it was decided that they would start their travel to LA the next day after they fixed the truck. Ash wasn’t very happy with this decision, protesting and grumbling and ultimately stalking off the room _–Sort of like a kid would–,_ not before yelling at Eiji over his shoulder to help him get blankets from the back of the truck so they could sleep inside the house that night, on the floor. It looked like Eiji would have to resign himself to an aching hip.

He wasn’t expecting to wake up to gunshots nor for the noise to stir excitement inside him instead of the dread he knows he should be feeling, but it’s hard to do that when Ash, who had felt so distant since they got there, who still felt so far away even in he was just in reach, looks at him and trusts him with his gun again.

“Put you back into it” He says and Eiji doesn’t know what that means exactly, but whatever he’s doing must be wrong because Ash closes the space between them to rectify his posture.

“Don’t worry about the wind resistance at this distance” He says and Eiji can feel the warm puffs of his breath against his cheek, one of his hands correcting Eiji’s grip, fingers grazing just over the covers Eiji has been wearing religiously since they started their travels. Ash’s arms were uncovered. It almost felt like a scene from a dorama or like _that_ scene from ‘Ghost’ and Eiji wanted to laugh at the ridiculousness of it, yet at the same time he relished on it.

Actually shooting a gun is a huge step from just holding one for a few seconds, it hurts more than he expected and he sucked at it way more than he cared to think about, but it was only his first try, no matter what an annoying gang leader said about it, thank you very much.

“Great shot” Came Ash’s reaction, his voice filled with mock praise. Eiji pouted his lips and looked dejectedly in his direction, eyebrows furrowed and posture defensive.

“It was my first time firing anything!” He defended, but Ash simply rolled his eyes at him “It wasn’t even that bad! It was my first time and I’m proud of it, thanks” Eiji turned his nose up in mock offense and was delighted to hear a chuckle scape Ash’s up until now impenetrable mask.

Eiji couldn’t help but laugh in return, shoulders coming down and a freeing feeling coming over him, like refreshing water after a long day. _He liked this_ , Eiji realized; he liked joking around with Ash, talking to him and not a persona he was impersonating. Suddenly it felt terribly easy to breath and act around him, almost like they were just two boys enjoying some free time together. Just two soulmates getting to know each other.

Ash’s eyes flicked towards Eiji’s arms yet again and Eiji felt irrationally bold, he had half a mind to rip both covers off and show, let him see, there was nothing he wished for most than to share the amazing people who had grazed his life with Ash Lynx. To tell him of an old man and a strong woman, of a tough girl with two black marks and of a fearless boy half a world away, tell him of a girl who flew through the sky and the girl who was just a about the greatest person in the world to him. Eiji wanted to hear the story behing Ash’s other mark and the story of his brother who, like Eiji, had once had colors blooming all over his wrists.

And the thing was, as he looked at Ash, his mouth open to tell him, to talk to him, to meet him, Eiji couldn’t think of a single reason why not to tell him, to share this incredibly personal part of himself with the American boy, because he was looking right back at Eiji, smile bright and eyes alight, expecting.

Eiji took in a breath and begun forming the words, his hand subconsciously inching towards his arm covers, ready to take them off.

And then everything shifted.

In a second Ash’s eyes weren’t on him but beyond him, his smile and easy demeanor had fallen to make way to the mask, he suddenly looked taller, unreachable.

It was Ibe-san with that same apprehensive look and tight set to his jaw, unassuming tone telling him to go back to the house to help with getting breakfast started, but he wasn’t looking at Eiji, instead his dark brown eyes were locked with Ash’s like they were having their own privet conversation.

Eiji gave Ash’s his gun back and tried to send a smile up his way, Ash’s eyes barely flicked back to him for a second before going back to settle behind him, but his posture relaxed a little and his eyes didn’t look quite as impenetrable, so Eiji tried to set all that out his mind as he ran back into the house.

_Maybe after breakfast, I’ll show him after breakfast._

After all, they had all the time in the world, right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I almost didn't post this, I wanted to write all of Cape Cod in one chapter, but that episode is sort of a mess and I had to cut in in half. I hope you liked it!  
> I thin my uni is going to go on strike so maybe I'll be able to post pretty soon!  
> Please stay safe and leave a comment if you liked it! (or if you didn't too lol)


	10. 10

He had never been one to get angry. Exploring said emotion felt alien to him, like putting his left shoe on his right foot or like eating rice with a fork; sure, he could do it and had done it before, but it wasn’t his default setting, if anything, he shied from it.

Being a man and specially a man who had spent most of his life training for a competitive sport, he knew violence in moderate amounts could be seen in a fairly good light, celebrated even. In the other hand, being a man primarily raised solely by his mother, strongly shaped by his female soulmates and mercilessly reprimanded by his oba-chan any time he showed the slightest tendency towards violent behavior, Eiji could say that for the most part, he wasn’t a violent or even an angry person.

Petty? Sure.

A sore loser? Maybe sometimes.

Stubborn? Most definitely.

But, violent? No, he wasn’t violent. Not even after losing competitions, not even when he was lost in a haze of pain and pain medications, not even when he was holding Ash’s gun in his hands.

So maybe that’s why it takes him a while

It doesn’t happen when they first arrive and Jim’s welcome to his long-estranged son is less than tepid or when he hears from Ash that his father’s way towards him has been distant at best for far longer than Eiji first imagined. No, those times it got him confused, it made him sad.

How a father could treat his own son that was beyond him. And OK, Eiji knew he wasn’t a dad, he had no clue how hard it was or how he would feel if he was in Jim’s shoes, but at the same time he did feel a little self-righteous. Eiji wasn’t a dad, but he did take care of his little sister most of his life, for as long as he could remember, wherever he went Mika followed, whatever she needed he tried to provide. Outside of school and practice, she had been his life, he molded his schedule to fit hers so she never had to go to school alone in the mornings or had to return to an empty house with no food to eat and no one to talk about her day to. Not to take any merit from their parents, his father had provided for as long as his body had let him and his mother had picked up the slack with no complains.

Point was, Eiji didn’t consider himself a violent person, but Ash’s father sure was trying to prove him wrong.

It’s not even the sharp words he once again directed at Ash or the way he once more sours the mood of the room. What does it is the way Ash’s smile falls from his face so easily, so resigned and instead of the nice looking young boy before him, a hardened man takes his place, warm green eyes turn jade stone and skim over Jennifer’s saddened expression settling on the door, an escape route located.

“I’ll leave once the truck is fixed” He says in that voice he does, oddly distant and painstakingly constructed, and walks out. Ash leaves the coffee Jennifer had made them in the bar, barely touched and cooling and right next to the bar he leaves Eiji, walks right past him like he doesn’t even see him and suddenly he forgets about not being violent.

The sadness that erupts in his chest is easily replaced, he is so tired of being sad and nothing coming off it, he is so tired of seeing Ash retreating into himself each time he tries to goad him out.

He’s just tired.

“Why can’t you just be nicer to him!?” He didn’t expect to yell. He also doesn’t really expect for the stony eyes –the eyes that look so much like Griffin’s– that stare him down, part of him kind of expected the man before him to completely ignore him. He half registered Jennifer gasp behind him, but he was no longer paying attention anywhere else “How can you say you do not want him here? He is your son!” Eiji’s hands slammed against the table, he was shaking and yet the man before him barely blinked.

“What’s with this punk kid?”

Eiji just couldn’t fathom it; did Americans really have such a low view of the importance of families? Shorter wasn’t like that when he talked about his sister, but he was also part Chinese, was this just another cultural difference Eiji wasn’t prepared for? For a parent to completely disregard a child not only it didn’t make any sense to him but it felt appalling and terribly lonely.

“He’s Ash’s buddy” Max’s arm fell heavily on his shoulders startling Eiji and effectively pulling him away from Ash’s dad. Max sent him a quick look – _calm down,_ it seemed to say– and Eiji felt suddenly ashamed of his outburst, he had been so wrapped up in his own head he hadn’t even noticed the rest of his friends arrive. “But why do you want to keep him away? He’s your son. Don’t you love him?”

Now that he was calmer Eiji could notice his surroundings and now he didn’t miss the way Jennifer’s face crumpled, slim shoulders drawn in and looking like they weighed a ton. Eiji felt a painful pang in his chest to see how much that look reminded him of how his own mother looked when she thought no one was watching, of the way she avoided everyone’s eyes and looked like she carried a deep-seated guilt within her.

How much time has passed since he last talked to his mother? Eiji had promised weekly calls back home but his mother had been working the last time so he had only chatted with his sister, how long ago was that? Days had been flying by since he joined this whirlwind of a life, he had barely noticed.

Eiji wasn’t sure what was it, maybe it was his baby face and foreignness that caused Jim not to take Eiji seriously or the fact that Max shared the same gruff American working man vibe that Ash’s dad possessed, but Jim looked genuinely intrigued when asking Max why they were sticking around Ash.

“I served in Iraq with Griffin” Was Max reply –Eiji thought back to the dusty picture back in the house, of matching rings of color in tow boy’s arms and figured there was more to Max’s statement than just serving with Griffin in a war. Apparently that was enough to grant him some modicum of Jim’s respect, because he remained quiet long enough to let Max say “We were soulmates”

Eiji had never been one to be violent, but at times like this he kinda wished he was. Maybe then he could have walked out and left, yell at the bar owner some more, maybe he could have went on with his life not ever learning what Jim tells them and maybe that would have been a far happier, easy-going life.

It wasn’t this life.

No. In this life Ash Lynx had once been a seven year old boy wronged by the world, taken advantage of and disappointed by those who were supposed to protect him. _‘He coached the boys’ baseball team. Kids around here loved him’_ He says.

Eiji thinks of being seven, of his sister when she was seven and feels the need to retch, his fingers go white with how tightly he’s holding the glass of orange juice Jennifer had served him; seven is not an age for things to happen to you. Nothing too big should happen when you are so completely unprepared to confront them, to understand them. Seven was too young to learn that his father had terminal cancer and gaining a losing a soulmate in the span of a few minutes and seven was most definitely too young to…

He really wished he was a violent person, because maybe then he wouldn’t draw in on himself and have his stupid brain play on repeat this godforsaken story, this horror story.

Eiji had been nine when he had started pole vaulting, not much older when he had a coach. They hadn’t said goodbye on the best terms, he had felt taken advantage of, what with Eiji retiring from his life’s work at eighteen after overworking and underfeeding his body for years and his coach enabling or even encouraging it for most of that time. Even if his coach had been ruthless and prone to screaming derogatory terms after a bad training session, Eiji had trusted him completely. He couldn’t imagine his coach doing… Ash had been seven.

Eiji doesn’t know what to do with himself, how to react. He looks at Shorter and it only makes him feel more uneasy to see his normally warm and open face hardened, maybe even pained. Eiji can relate, they share a pain, even if he knows Shorter and Ash’s relationship goes way deeper than Eiji’s.

If losing a soulmate feels cold, learning they’ve been hurt in such a profound way feels blazing hot, like hot oil or fiery embers and just as painful.

“Griffin disappeared before any of this” Max says, he’s looking directly at the table and his voice sounds hollow in a way that makes Eiji believe he isn’t really talking to them now, instead he sounds like someone coming to a horrid realization. “If he… If he hadn’t gotten hurt he would have come back and–”

“Wouldn’t’ve made a difference” Jim grumbles. He raises his thick arm and drinks the rest of his strong-smelling drink in one go, a nasty half grin, lacking of any joy, taking form in his face “His arms like a goddamn’ rainbow! Just like Ash’s bitch of a mother. Those people are all made to leave e’ryone after a while, yaknow?” He says, his speech slurring a bit around the edges making it even harder for Eiji to translate efficiently “He was your soulmate and he left you too, di’n’t he?”

The tension in the room seems to only grow if that was even possible. Max looks angry, big hands curled into fists while Ibe-san keeps sending alarmed looks his way. Shorter’s posture is stiff and Jennifer’s cheeks go an embarrassed pink and Eiji… Eiji feels breathless and afraid, in a way that feels familiar like when a teacher asks you to answer for the whole class a question you absolutely hadn’t heard or when someone catches you doing something you shouldn’t, thing was, Eiji didn’t know what he had done and yet he felt grateful he hadn’t taken of his arm covers even for a second and grateful for Ibe-san interrupting him and Ash when he had been so so close to tell him.

“We better go pack”

Max’s voice is clipped as he gets up from the table and marches out, Ibe-san following him close by. Shorter makes a face and parts his lips as if deciding whether to say something or not for a second or two, before he too rises up and walks to the door. Eiji on the other hand feels rooted to his chair and not because he would like to stay in the room, quite the opposite actually, he would love to run out and as far as his legs would take him, but he feared that if he moved he would draw attention to himself and he definitely didn’t want that _either._

Shorter stops just before crossing the threshold as if noticing his absence. Eiji doesn’t know what his face looks like right now, but it must be a pitiful sight, because his pinched expression softens and he jerks his head, encouraging Eiji to leave too.

That’s enough to snap him out of his reverie and like a doll brought to life Eiji jumps from his chair a nervously mumbles “Thank you for the drinks, miss Jennifer” causing her head to snap in his direction, looking surprised to being addressed at all, before following suit and walking out of the diner.

Outside the air is fresh and Eiji feels like he can breathe better, if only a little bit. It’s not as deadly quiet as it was inside the diner, crickets and many other insects harmonizing with the wind under the starry night loud enough for Eiji not to be able to hear what Max and Ibe-san are talking about a few meters ahead of him and Shorter. The gang leader looks contemplative, staring up and ahead, maybe he was trying to imagine how such monstrosities could happen in a place like this.

No wonder Ash had that faraway look since they arrived, he barely even smiled.

He had smiled at Eiji, though. When he was teaching him to use a gun and Eiji had felt ready to tell him something so private. Jim’s words resonate inside his head.

“Shorter” He began telling him not really sure how to follow, but it was already too late; brown inquisitive eyes turned his way “I–I’m sorry but I did not get all that Ash’s father said back there, he speaks very fast so…” He babbled and avoided the other’s gaze feeling awfully like when his parents had reprimanded him for asking Hana about her black marks, like he was about to say something wrong, something everyone else knew how to say right “He commented Griffin’s soulmarks… but… he kind of made it sound like it was a bad thing?”

Eiji hadn’t meant for it to come off like a question, but Shorter takes it in stride. He makes a face and scratches the back of his head before finally looking back in Eiji’s way.

“That’s cuz he’s a bigoted boomer” Shorter spat rolling his eyes and burying his hands in his pockets. Eiji was bewildered.

“I don’t know those words” He tells him blankly as they keep walking.

“Sorry” Shorter makes another face, considering his words “I meant he‘s prejudiced and has very old ways of looking at stuff, like– Like there’s a few people, idiots really, that judge others about their soulmates, if they have too little, too many or none at all’s like they’re never satisfied”

Shorter finally huffs a puff of air looking annoyed, before continuing “Some assholes actually think people with few or no marks are total prudes and that people with many are greedy, even though is really freakin’ stupid since is not like we choose who we’re bonded with” He finishes exasperated before looking at Eiji with curiosity “Don’t you have people like that in Japan?”

“I am not really sure. We don’t really talk about it, it is very personal topic” Eiji explains, heart beating hard against his ribcage and tears pinpricking at his eyes. He blames it on the cold and salty wind coming from the sea drying out his eyes.

Silence falls back upon them and Eiji’s left alone to his thoughts once more, a terrible thing honestly. It’s a prison he doesn’t get to ever truly escape full of racing thoughts and stagnant voids that seem to be much louder now than normal, his stomach feels upset too, nausea crawling over his entire body and constricting his chest. Eiji not for the first time wishes he had been able to take a few things from Ibe-san’s apartment before fleeing New York, like clothes or the pills his doctor had given him for emergencies. Even having a phone would be nice, he felt the nagging need to call back home right about now, but his phone (a new phone at that) had been ruined after they had to jump from that bridge to avoid getting shot.

He also kind of wanted to go back in time to before he heard Ash’s past, he feels guilty for learning about it from someone other than him. He wants to run to him and ask forgiveness or maybe to ignore ever hearing anything, what was the better option? His arm covers felt itchy and the air around him stale and thick, it took effort to push it into his lungs and he felt afraid, so afraid. Would Ash think less of him for his soulmarks? Maybe he would be repulsed of it, of the fact that Eiji belonged to so many people, Eiji himself had felt spread thin sometimes, having his soul, his very essence shared with so many people –amazing and wonderful people, sure– people who could be gone in an instant and leave him cold and scarred for the rest of his life. People who already had.

Ash had been robbed of his childhood and of something so precious and intrinsically _his_ , why would he ever want to share his soul with someone who had so little of it left to share back?

 _‘He wouldn’t’_ His brain unhelpfully supplies. The four of them aren’t back in the house for more than a few minutes before Eiji is feeling cooped up and restless. Oh, he really wished he was back on the top of the hill shooting Ash’s gun. But he isn’t, he is inside and Ash is nowhere to be found.

Eiji debates whether that’s a bad or a good thing, maybe it’s for the best if he doesn’t see Ash for a while, lets his head settle and his anxiety die down so he doesn’t blow up with the guilt of this _secret_ he carries under his sleeve, this secret he didn’t even know it was a secret until he realized that… That maybe Ash won’t want him around if he finds out.

He’ll send Eiji away and he won’t ever find out where this unbelievable journey ends up, won’t know if they’re all safe and he would just have to return to his old empty life with no prospects and no one to actually _need_ him around. The only thing connecting them being a fragile mark in their arms that could vanish away any day or worse, change its hue when Eiji is least expecting it, warm blue-green that reminds him of the see back home turning into a cold black and scar his skin while Eiji is sleeping, taking a call or taking a plane back home and that will be all the warning there is, all the news he’ll get.

“I’m going out to check on Ash” Eiji says, voice deceivingly calm.

Maybe it was better if he didn’t see Ash for a little bit until he calmed back down, bet Eiji didn’t want to wait, he wanted to go to him, see him, be close. A natural thing between two people recently bonded, Eiji knew, but no matter how many times he had gone through it he couldn’t avoid it. Over all, Eiji needed to know if he was alright.

“Oy! I’m coming with’ya!” Shorter called as he ran up to meet him. Eiji didn’t mind, he liked Shorter, at moments it felt it was impossible not to like Shorter. His very presence was calming and the way he seemed to just _get_ Eiji was comforting, like having an old friend amongst a new crowd. He also was protective of Eiji, he had noticed, and while it was kind of off-putting that Shorter thought he needed babysitting, Eiji couldn’t deny even to himself that it was somewhat reassuring.

Though not even having Shorter beside him was any relief when the shooting started.

One second he had felt his chest untighten and air breech his lungs at seeing Ash just outside of the diner. The next Shorter pushed him to the dirt and ordered him to stay before he too ran inside.

Eiji had half a mind to listen to him but something inside him _pulled_. Like he was a boy again walking into a hospital room or he was a teenager and could feel the Earth trembling from its very core and a part of his very essence leave him forever. A third black line on his arms. He had to go in too.

Eiji may be retired and his bones may have screws holding them in place, but he could still run, run fast and ignoring everything else but reaching his goal, ignore even Ibe-san’s _‘Ei-chan wait!!’_ as he climbed out of the truck with Max and they too ran into the diner.

He walked in just in time to see blood splutter out of a man’s throat and Shorter’s bloody knife held expertly on his deft hands. It wasn’t at all like in the movies, where a body falls in slow motion and the blood falls artistically and dramatically on to every character’s shocked faces. It looked more like a sack of flour hitting the floor, hard and unmoving meanwhile the blood spilled and gathered around in a small pond almost big enough to stain the bottom of red converse sneakers.

“Don’t look at this Eiji, you won’t be able to handle it” Came Shorter’s unusually grave voice, but Eiji was already turning away, wide eyes turning in the direction of shallow breathing and a blood soaked apron. Jennifer looked ghastly pale, body strewn around like a doll, her eyes were looking sightless to the ceiling and her dainty hand closed and opened around air beside her.

It’s like air suddenly turns solid and gets lodged in his lungs. Labored breathing and sightless eyes, like Griffin’s, a gunshot again, was this Eiji’s fault too? Was this because he had called Ash’s name? Her blood was pooling around her and Eiji could almost see his mother on her tearful eyes for some reason.

Time restarted and Max and Ibe-san came crashing into the diner, Ash was holding his father upright, blood was seeping through his shirt too. Eiji jumped in place and felt like an electric shock went through his body, electrocuting him and causing him to run up to Jennifer.

He took off his cardigan and folded it before applying pressure with it on her chest, but it wasn’t enough, she had two gunshot wounds draining the life out of her, but Eiji had to try, Ibe-san soon joining him at her other side. Another man came running and there was some talking, but Eiji couldn’t pay attention to any of it; Jennifer’s light blue eyes had locked on his and all he could think of now wasn’t his mother but his father, dying away on a hospital bed, pale and pained.

So he held her hand and smiled. He may not know much about medicine or what to do to keep her alive, even if he had spent an alarming amount of time on hospitals growing up, but one thing he did know was that there were few things worse than dying alone and one of those was dying afraid.

“You gotta call an ambulance” Jim’s voice called frazzled, the foreign emotion on his voice snapping Eiji’s attention back to them “And call the cops too!” A strange man agreed and ran back out at full speed and it wasn’t too long before sirens rung on the distance.

Shorter hurried to clean the knife and place it on Jennifer’s other hand, his sunglasses had slipped down his nose and he could see the guilt on his eyes as he took sight of her. It was short-lived before he pushed them back up and he grabbed Eiji’s arm and pulled him outside, his hand effectively yanked from his hold on Jennifer’s, and helped him up the truck. Ibe-san and Max following suit and starting the truck, pulling it into the road where Ash catches up to them, hands bloody and screaming.

Eiji wasn’t a violent person, because he had no right to be one, he was self-aware enough now to see that. He wasn’t a violent person and honestly, he didn’t know if Ash was one either. What he did know was that Ash had every reason to be violent and so he understood why Ash screamed at nothing, why tears fell furiously from his eyes as he punched the floor of the truck until his knuckles went bloody and his throat hoarse.

The front of the truck was deadly silent. Shorter looked distant and grim, body tense like he was ready to jump on Ash at any moment if he thought it necessary but leaving him be for now. Ash himself looked like a wild animal, breathing ragged and eyes afire. Eiji could only watch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys, I swear it took me the *longest* time to finish this chapter. I kept rewriting it! I could never quite like how it turned out it was so frustrating!!
> 
> Anyway I hope you liked it. Thank you for reading this far and a special thanks to those who comment, you guys literally give me the confidence I need to keep on posting even when I have a hard time writing!
> 
> I hope everyone and their loved ones are safe!
> 
> Also I changed the summary of the fic, what do you all think?? 😅


	11. 11

When Eiji was little he had what he for many years thought was the most uncomfortable car ride of his life. It’s never easy to see your father cry for the first time and it was especially hard when you were locked in a moving vehicle while he sobs, his mother dead silent, staring right ahead and clutching her skirt so tight her knuckles turn white, Eiji’s only reprieve had been that Mika was so young that the atmosphere went way over her head and fell asleep easily once they were back in the car, leaving the hospital with a diagnosis and what felt like a life sentence.

Eiji would take that car ride any day over the first few hours of their drive away from Cape Cod, once the reality of what happened hit all of them and the only noise was the truck tires slamming the open road. Once the silence fell Ash slumped against a wall of the truck and turned his back on them, Shorter’s eyes were obscured by his sunglasses which probably casted the world in complete darkness this late at night when only the moon lighted their way a bit, he reached inside his jacked and pulled out a crumpled cigarettes box and a lighter.

The slight tip of his wrist in his direction offering Eiji a cigarette was all the interaction he had since Max had steered the truck through backroads before Shorter lighted one and started smoking, eyes lost in the road they were leaving behind for hours.

Eiji was panicking.

His eyes kept roaming around, from Ash to Shorter, to the floor of the truck, the moving pavement, the sky, Ash, Shorter, floor, pavement, sky, repeat. In the end his eyes settled on himself and that was when it became hard to breath; there was blood on his hands, it was dry and it looked brown now were it also stained his pants and shirt.

Jennifer, it was Jennifer’s blood on him. Jennifer who is (was?) Ash’s step-mother, Jennifer who served him orange juice just a few hours ago. How old was Jennifer? She looked young, too young to have her blood pooling around her, although, how old was old enough for that? How old was Griffin again? Jennifer… Eiji didn’t even know how old she was or if she was even still alive and yet he had her blood on him, it was under his nails and in the creases of his palms, she was in Cape Cod and her blood was with him here, kilometers away by now.

Eiji desperately wanted his mid to shut off right about now. He also wanted a change of clothes. He wanted the pill bottle on the nightstand on Ibe-san’s apartment and the clothes on his wardrobe and to call his mom and _how old was Jennifer?_ Why didn’t he know? Her blood was on him and her eyes had locked on his and she had looked so pale, Eiji had never seen someone so white before, like a sheet of paper or freshly fallen snow.

After what felt like days had passed the truck stopped. Eiji thought Ash had fallen asleep but the easiness and alertness with which he stood up proved otherwise, Eiji could feel his heartbeat hammering against his breastbone in fear, why were they stopping? Was something wrong?

Apparently Ash and Shorter were thinking about the same thing because both of them stood up and reached for a weapon; Ash to his gun in his back pocket and Shorter from inside his bright orange jacket only to relax their stances once Max showed up from the driver’s side of the truck.

“What the hell old man! Why’re we stopping?” Ash asked defensively as he jumped off into the pavement with Max. The older man was looking worse for wear, clear bags under his eyes and that frazzled air to him that all of them seem to share since leaving Cape Cod.

“We’ve driven far enough for the night, I’ve doubled back a few times and taken backroads, no one’s following us right now” Max defended harshly, Ash looked ready to fight that and was already opening his mouth when Max spoke again, this time softer, like a dad talking to a toddler “And we all need to rest, kid, even you. I can’t keep driving all night and even if I could it’s no use without a plan. Let’s make camp for the night, sleep tonight off for a couple hours until the sun rises, yeah?”

Shorter jumped off too and mumbled something to the two blond men, Eiji couldn’t see Ash’s face or reaction, because his brain was already wandering at the same time another car door opened and closed. Sleep sounded glorious but also highly unlikely in his state so he followed suit and jumped off only to sway sideways dangerously; he seriously needed to stop sleeping on trucks and on the floor or his ankle was going to fall off altogether.

_“Ei-chan, are you alright?”_

Ibe-san’s voice came from behind him startling him some, also hearing his native language after so much English felt shocking somehow and Eiji had to gather his thoughts for a moment just to get his words in order. How could he answer that? Was he alright?

 _“Yes, just a little tired, that’s all”_ Eiji settled with, not completely untrue, but the trembling on his voice made it sound like a lie. Ibe-san didn’t look convinced so he continued _“Also my… my ankle really hurts”_ He confessed with a grimace, he had made a point not to mention it unless he could avoid the topic, but if talking about his injury was a way to skip around what was really bothering him, he would take it.

Ibe-san still looked slightly distrustful, but he also looked a bit guilty _“Oh, of course, it must be killing you. I should’ve let you use the bed back in the cabin”_ He regretted.

 _“Please don’t worry about it”_ Eiji said containing a whine at the memory of the cabin, the blood. He could feel his breathing getting away from him again so he focused on his surroundings instead.

Max had parked the truck a bit off the road, instead of pavement they were standing on dirt and rocks, the truck itself was wedged between bushes and in the dark it looked almost like part of the nature surrounding it. A bit further there was what looked like never-ending grass fields, sporadically littered with a few trees and bushes and if he paid enough attention he could hear a creek nearby.

Max, Ash and Shorter were still talking in hushed tones, planning the next move and the safest course of action and Ibe-san was still evaluating him with searching eyes. It was all a bit too much.

 _“Do you hear water?”_ Eiji blurted out while his eyes begged at Ibe-san for a free pass out of this conversation or at least a temporary reprieve of it. Ibe-san took a couple of seconds to answer, searching his face with a seriousness that often made Eiji forget he wasn’t that much older than himself, Ibe-san is under thirty years old and somehow he still can make Eiji feel like a kid being scolded by his father.

 _“Yeah, maybe you could go clean up, huh_?” Eiji could almost cry from relief and gratefulness, Ibe-san’s eyes showed that he didn’t buy Eiji’s change of topic, but decided to back off for the moment.

Eiji didn’t really want to walk away from the group alone, but he also couldn’t stand the stickiness and the tightness to his skin that dried blood left him with any longer and he wasn’t one to waste an opportunity, so with a small thank you to Ibe- san he walked shakily in the direction he heard the running water from, it wasn’t far away at all, but still enough to not being able to hear the other men talk anymore.

The creek wasn’t more than a meter or two in width, but it was full enough that Eiji wet his pants when he kneeled close to it. It didn’t matter, though; he already had blood on them. The water looked brown-ish in color, dark in the heavy night, yet the moon casted some light on it making it shine a little where rocks and pebbles disrupted the flow of it. Eiji stared at it for a minute (Two minutes?) and just kneeled there, part of him telling him to move and do something and other keeping him rooted there, like it knew that if he moved something would crack and his brain would turn off the static and go on full volume, deafening.

Finally he forced himself to look down, down at his lap and then at his half raised arms, his arms that had three full layers covering them, the once whit button-down they had loaned him, a peach colored cardigan and under both his arm covers –his Sourumākukabā– which also had once been white, but he had had to reuse them since New York and hadn’t had a chance to clean them although that didn’t really matter, did it? he got blood all over then anyway, Jennifer’s blood, sticky and warm and now brown blood.

He doesn’t even notice his hands shaking as he pulls his cardigan and shirt sleeves up as high as they can go and he doesn’t hear his own gasp as he confirms his fears and sees brown stains on the fabric. He doesn’t even think before he harshly rips them off himself and starts furiously scrubbing them on the brown-ish shiny water, brown-ish shiny _freezing_ water that makes the joints on his fingers ache or perhaps that’s just the friction of the fabric and the force he’s using trying to get clean and then he stops-

He stops because he feels wetness threatening to spill out of his eyes and forces himself to breathe but it comes out ragged and irregular.

“You shouldn’t walk off on your own”

Eiji gasps when he hears Ash close behind him. He hadn’t heard him come and instead of looking in his direction he turned sharply the other way retracting both his arms towards his chest, suddenly uncomfortably aware of the fact that all of his marks were bare to the world. Had Ash seen them? Was he disgusted? Was he angry? _Had he seen?_

He hurries to put both covers back on even if they were soaking and made the rest of his clothes wet in the process before he gathers the courage to look at Ash. He seems surprised, eyebrows raised a bit at Eiji’s reaction and he doesn’t blame him; Eiji had been nothing if welcoming to each and every interaction Ash had started, taking every opportunity to get closer to him with joy, so when this time he recoiled at seeing him it was bound to be shocking.

Ash took a step back and joined him kneeling on the wet grass without a complaint. “Sorry” he mumbles and Eiji feels his heart clench a little bit at his tone, never since they had met had Eiji heard such a youthful voice out of the gang leader. Now he sounded like any vulnerable seventeen year old boy, avoiding Eiji’s gaze and instead focusing on cleaning his own hands on the water.

Instantly something inside his chest loosens and it feels like he can breathe again, small doses of warmth spreading almost unnoticed from the mark they share. It happens so fast it gives him whiplash.

“It not your fault” Eiji says softly as to not scare this youthful Ash away, but with enough intent to hopefully make him understand Eiji means it and not just about scaring him just now.

Ash stops his scrubbing momentarily without moving his eyes from his hands, shoulders tense like a wild cat ready to pounce before he visibly relaxes and gives one curt nod.

_He looks more worried about scaring me than he does for cleaning his father’s blood off his hands._

The thought comes to him traitorously, making him remember Ash isn’t just a vulnerable seventeen year old boy who may have lost his father and step-mom just a few hours ago. He is Ash Lynx, gang leader of Manhattan, a man used to guns and knives wounds and to escaping from the police leaving bodies behind.

Were they bodies? Eiji has no idea.

Maybe the ambulance or the police got there in time and they were being treated by doctors or even better, already stable and out of danger, that possibility was just as plausible as the one where they both died a little while after they ran away, before any help could come and they had both bled out in their own home and Ash would never see any of his family again.

Ash startles him again with a chuckle; he was looking his way now so when Eiji looked up his eyes met green. Ash had already dried his hands on his pants –if the new stains on them were any indication– and had tilted his head to the side a bit, a little tired smile dancing on his lips and not for the first time Eiji thought he was stunning “You look like you’ve seen a ghost, what is it?” Ash asked.

“Do you think they are alive?” Ash s smirk drops fast and he looks at Eiji, assessing him, a curious look on his eyes staring him up and down before grimacing and looking away with a practiced shrug.

“No way to know” he says then like it was a simple answer and it shocks Eiji. He could practically feel the wall rising between them and felt confident enough to say he could actually pinpoint the second Ash’s face turned plastic.

“You are lying to me” Eiji realizes and counts it as a small, if maybe a rather empty, victory to see Ash's eyes widen slightly at been caught. “You do not have to do that, I can take it”

“Can you?”

Ash face was dead serious and his words felt like a slap in the face, and yet Eiji could tell he didn’t say them to try to mock him or to be cruel in any way, in fact it sounded like an honest question but it gave him pause all the same. “Do you want me to tell you what I really think?” he continued and Eiji was at a loss.

Even if his tone hadn’t changed it felt oddly like a threat. Eiji debated and began second guessing himself; What use was there in knowing? he was most likely never going to see them again either way, besides if Ash's answer was what he feared it was going to be, Eiji thinks he might have an actual full blown panic attack and he can't, not here, not without his pills or his phone or sister or in front of Ash.

Eiji held his gaze before slowly and quietly saying “I guess not”.

Silence fell and so did Ash’s intense eyes from his own boring ones, Eiji could feel knots tying themselves on his stomach.

“Tell me something nice then” Eiji finally settled with. Ash looked at him like he had blurted out something in Japanese, completely confused.

“Nice?” He says slowly, like he was getting a taste of the word for the first time and looking incredulously.

“Yes! Like… Tell me about your brother” Eiji blurts out only to be met by silence “Tell me how old was Griffin” He asks. Begs.

“Thirty two” Ash answers finally.

“That a lot” Eiji commented, quickly making the math to see how big the age gap between both brothers was. “My sister is only thirteen” Eiji supplies and that does get a reaction from Ash, his eyes shine suddenly, if only just a little.

“I didn’t know you had a sister” He says softly and moves slightly closer to Eiji, almost unconsciously.

“She is a… how you say?” Eiji searched his vocabulary for a brief moment “An airhead” he stated with a twinge of triumph and struggling to stifle the crushing blow of homesickness that drowned him when he remembered his little sister.

That startled a laugh out of Ash at least and his head tilted again, his eyes studying Eiji once more but in a much kinder light if he had to assume.

“Griff liked poetry” Ash says, voice barely higher than a whisper. “He used to read to me when I was a kid I think” Eiji felt like he had been gifted the greatest treasure for no real reason.

“That is very nice” Eiji was whispering too, he was grateful for this small piece of information, his breathing had already calmed down and without being able to control himself his eyes traveled to the mark they shared, peeking from under Ash’s rolled up sleeve. Ash followed his line of sight.

“Why do you hide them?” He asked then.

“They are very private” Eiji grimaced. He couldn’t really explain it to someone who never learned to cove his marks, it was so integrated in him that he doubted he had ever questioned it.

“You’re soaking wet” Ash countered, raising an eyebrow.

“So are you” Eiji retorted as he felt the weird need to put his hands on his hips like his mother did when scolding him and Mika.

“What? No I’m n–” Ash’s question was cut short when the small splash of water Eiji sent his way hit his face and shirt effectively wetting his clothes too.

His face which was… Eiji wanted to roll around laughing at the look of pure shock no the blond’s face, he looked absolutely incredulous and also complete outraged.

“You…” He stuttered and Eiji had to stifle his laughter behind his hands causing Ash’s eyes to snap with a threatening shine to them, slightly reminding Eiji of a cat’s dilated pupils before jumping for pray “You are so paying for that” He smirked and began standing up menacingly, still Eiji felt himself smile wider than he had in days, his heard hammering against his chest in an entirely good way. It felt like his body was about to take flight.

“Alright love birds! Nap time only lasts a couple hours!” Shorter hollering all the way from the truck made him jump in place and it made blood rush to his cheeks. Now that he looked around he noticed that the sky didn’t look nearly as black as it had before, the lighter hues threatening to bring the dawn and with it a new day of escaping and planning and dealing with the bloody mess they had twiddled themselves into.

Eiji stood up and his knees cracked a bit but he ignored them, stretching his hand towards Ash.

“Come on” He smiled at the other boy, palm facing upwards, waiting “We need rest for tomorrow”

Ash’s eyes were open a bit too wide as they looked up to him, but Eiji wrote it off to the lingering darkness and the difficulty to see each other. He shook his hand a little, waking Ash from his day-dreaming (early-morning-dreaming?) and he finally took his outstretched hand, pulling himself up.

Touching still felt warm and tingly, like that first time, and it was a stark and deeply welcomed contrast to the feeling of his soaking and stained clothes against his skin.

Even as they let go to walk back to the truck and as they fell asleep on different sides of it, even as he woke up almost two and a half hours later to resume their traveling, the feeling lingered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It is past 5 am and I have many regrets but I really hope you like this chapter! Im sorry for the delay but my days have been hectic. Probably going to edit this later, but for now I hope you enjoy :)  
> Thank you so so much to everyone for reading and commenting this, you are all the best!  
> Please stay safe!


	12. 12

Ibe Sunichi was by no means an old man, he was twenty eight years of age that was not old, in fact, to his employers he had been quite a young hire.

That being said, he was feeling pretty decrepit lately.

Maybe it was the fact that he had showered about the same amount of times he had changed his clothes in the past week, both of which were a alarmingly low number, or maybe it was because he had slept on a truck for no more than a couple of hours at a time for over a week now or maybe it was the company he was in.

Children.

The lot of them, he was surrounded. Ibe didn't care they were a retired elite athlete and a couple of gang leaders, murderers probably, or that they carried weapons as comfortably and as absent-mindedly as kids their age carried cellphones, they were still just that, kids.

The oldest of the lot wasn't even twenty two, two of them couldn't even drink legally in this country and one of them should still be in high school for God's sake!

Ibe Sunichi was not an old man buy he _had_ reached an age where he found himself saying things like 'when I was young' and 'kids these days, huh?'

It had happened unfairly fast, because to him it felt like yesterday when he had, indeed, been young. He remembers being eleven and having the biggest crush on Takahashi Eiko.

The mark she gave him came and went in the span of a school year, but it left behind a long lasting friendship.

Despite being two years his senior she was incredibly kind to him, even when no one in Izumo wanted to hang out with the scrawny big city kid that had just moved in in the middle of the school year after his parents’ divorce.

Eiko was pretty, funny and smart and honestly Sunichi didn't understand why she bothered with him. He guessed it had to do with the gossip and the stares that followed her around ever since her sister, Takahashi Hanako, had dropped out of high school, eloped with a university student and had a baby only a couple of months after the wedding.

That had been two years prior to them meeting, meaning that when he met Eiji for the first time the boy had been only a toddler. His and Eiko’s friendship and Eiko and his sister’s closeness meant that Sunichi had seen quite a bit of the Okumura kids as they grew up, he was a ‘fun uncle’ of sorts, he enjoyed bringing them trinkets and postcards every time he left Izumo in the summer.

So Ibe thought he could be excused to be a little over protective over the boy he had practically seen grow up. Especially now that he was under his care, especially after seen him blood stained and shaky more than once, kidnapped twice and after all that the boy should be traumatized, a shell of himself, but he wasn’t, instead he was laughing. He was freaking laughing at Shorter trying and failing to get the attention of a pretty girl, he was posing at Ibe when he aimed his camera at him and he smiled fondly every time Ash came into the conversation.

That made him queasy too, the free joyful laughter that came from him whenever ash was involved

Ibe was not old, but he certainly felt like it when he saw his young charge interact with the other two and something loud and all-consuming started bubbling inside him; it was his inner-mom, as Max had called it, acting up and annoyingly battling for dominance whenever Eiji laughed too hard with them, became too touchy, too... Too relaxed around people he should be cautious around.

Ash and Shorter were literally what worried parents warned their children about.

He had always known that was going to be a problem though, Hanako- San had warned him, back when he had asked for her blessing before he dragged her only son half across the world. She had said, with no qualms and no stutter, as sure of herself as he had always known her to be, that her son was a brilliant young man, astoundingly kind and extremely empathetic, but not the brightest out of the bunch, _‘too trusting’_ she had said with that worried pinch on her brow that all mothers seem to share (and that Ibe was now developing apparently).

_'My son is the kind of person who would indeed jump off a bridge if a friend asked'_

Ibe hoped with all his might that she never found out just how ironically accurate her statement had been.

He definitely owes Hanako-san an apology.

He also owes his own mother an apology for ever rebelling against her better judgement; after all, he too had worried her beyond belief in his eagerness to follow around an American outlaw that had caught his interest.

Although to be fair said American had become an outlaw way after Ibe had made his way back to Japan, his university studies concluded and his student visa expired.

Back then the thought of Max being an ex-con would have been hilarious to him, back then he had been the cool older guy with his life put together; a reporter, a war veteran, he had the wife and the kid on the way and he had guided Sunichi through the tricky paths of following a story, knowing what to ask and when to ask it to get just what you needed from a subject.

Max was also one of his soulmates. Since the moment they met Ibe knew this man was going to be important and time proved him right; he had become a life-long friend so Ibe felt instinctually trusted him more than he probably should considering they hadn’t seen each other in a few years and now Max had gone to jail and was very comfortable traveling alongside a couple of gangsters.

Ibe trusted Max just like Eiji trusted Ash.

And that was another thing. He had a suspicion, this suspicion planted itself like a little seed since he had seen Eiji in the hospital after getting kidnapped (the first time), the boy was barely lucid, drunk with blood loss and trauma and yet he only seemed preoccupied with getting Ash help, Eiji had passed out murmuring his name over and over again. The seed became a plant and now it felt like a full grown tree, or maybe even a forest.

Soulmates.

It had to be, because honestly, he had known Eiji since he was a sweet and kind little toddler and Sunichi knew that the word ‘determined’ fell kilometers short when it came to Okumura Eiji, but he was seldom as reckless and blind to danger as he was being now.

The one other time he had seen Eiji like this was with pole-vaulting, when he had ignored all the red flags his body had given him, ignored the dangers he and his coach were exposing him to.

When he heard of the accident and saw him again, now eighteen and neither as sweet nor as kind, but rather angry and sad, so sad, such a broken piece of what he used to be, Eiko had called him crying for her beloved nephew, once the light and joy of that little house now barely left his room, barely ate, barely anything

Sunichi had done the one thing he could think of and proposed to bring him here, far away from it all and he had felt sure of himself as he did so, it was hard not to when Eiji seemed mildly excited about the idea (which was way more emotion than what he had been expressing for a while), though since the first kidnapping he had been having his doubts about that.

By the time they reached LA Sunichi was sure he had made a huge mistake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd like to begin by saying that college sucks and I'm so sorry! I really didn't mean to take so long before posting but I've been bombarded with so many exams and assignments I've barely slept, much less written.  
> It's been awful and what's worse is I've had this for a long while but unedited, my plan was to do a very long chapter with different PoV's and to advance the story, but I started hated how it turned out so even if it's very short I hope you dont hate this!  
> I'll do my best to update soon, I'll get to work on editing what comes next as soon as I get some sleep.  
> Once again thank you so much for sticking up with this story, each comment makes my day even if I don't reply right away


	13. 13

When shorter was little he broke his sister’s music box. It had been a gift from their parents, apparently passed from their grandmother’s mother all the way down to Nadia for her to pass down to her own daughter, should she ever have one.

Shorter knows his mom never actually gave it to Nadia, his big sister had actually inherited it just as she inherited his custody, their family restaurant and the gang connections that came with said restaurant.

One day that music box had sat on his mother’s dresser, dusty blue, faded gold and dented, yet imposing and treasured, when he was twelve years old he remembers thinking it was gonna sit there forever, but it didn’t.

One day it was on his mother’s dresser, his mom cooking breakfast at 5 AM singing along to lousy 80’s music from her youth on the radio and the next his mother was scattered on a highway, skull smashed and brains sprawled, just as his father.

As his parents breathed their last breaths the music box had remained perched on the dresser and it only found its new home on Nadia’s window sill after the funeral, and that’s where it stayed for about four months until Shorter, in a fit of misdirected rage, exploding grief and just pure childish stupidity, smashed it to the ground in the middle of a dumb fight or another.

It scattered into pieces big and small and all over the room, kinda like his mother’s brain smeared on the pavement on his nightmares and his sister cried.

He hadn't ever seen her cry, not when they were kinds, not even at the funeral.

He had been angry and stupid and now she was crying, kneeling on the floor to pick up the pieces.

Up until that point he had only felt grief and rage, but that day a new emotion joined those two.

He felt guilt. So much guilt, like a coat of paint over his body. No, like a coat of tar, thick and gross and boiling falling on top of him, from his head down to his toes and he was covered in it, it spread into his veins through his pores and down his nose and his inside his mouth until it reached his lungs and choked him with the weight of it and all the while his sister was crying, sobbing more like, so loud and so much he felt like the room was getting filled with salty water.

He tried treading through the water, to reach her, to help her pick up the pieces.

When Shorter was little he saw a different side of his sister for the first time, it wasn’t the side he knew, the side that cradled after a nightmare and scolded him after he screwed up, the one that fed him and dried his tears, no this side was ugly, was rage and animal, her pensive eyes filled with so much pain and anger and her pretty smile twisted in a snarl.

"GET OUT"

He could still hear her if he tried hard enough though he never did.

It was a teaching moment because for the first time he learned that sometimes, no matter what you did, you are fucked.

He wanted nothing but to help her, fix his mistake and at the same time she needed him away, she needed the alone time she never got and never would get now that she had to forget about college and her dreams to concentrate on maintaining the family restaurant, now that she had to forget her own life and become a mother to her twelve year old brother.

When Shorter was little he knew that if he stayed he would be making her furious and once again disobeying her instructions and if he left he would be leaving his sister crying alone on the floor.

Shorter was anything but little now and yet he felt like it. He felt small.

He felt so small because it was like the music box all over again only it wasn't, it was so much worse.

It had happened just as fast; the shift from thinking everything in his world was going according to plan, a music box on a dresser, to realizing it wasn’t, that he was completely helpless, big and small pieces scattering through the ground.

It had happened in less than a day.

Just the night before they had arrived to that big mansion in LA and from that moment on, he hadn’t known, but they had all been done for.

Their first mistake had been stopping by Max’s ex-wife’s house in time for the old man to see his son in time for his birthday, it sounded innocent enough, such a pure and wholesome wish that they had all forgotten how stupid and reckless it was, even if Max’s wife was hot and scary and even if their kid was sweet and they had all received their first decent meal in a while, that didn’t make it any less stupid.

Their second mistake was leaving.

Their third, and probably deadlier, mistake though was trusting.

You would think that after all he had done and experienced, after spending more time in juvie than at a school, after learning all the territories and power shifts in New York before learning about world geography and USA or China’s politics, he would be savvy enough to not fall for a pretty face but honestly, he wasn’t.

Sing suffered for it enough, most of the leading experience that kid had gotten came from the times Shorter slacked off chasing tail or getting distracted by some flirty chick or guy in a dimly lit bar (Although it didn’t happen as often as most thought). Shorter had been intrigued by Ash long before that line had appeared on their wrists thanks to the resemblance the blonde boy he bunked with had with the angel in the card Nadia had sent him. He had taken a, instant liking to Eiji when he saw him at Chang Dai, all cute and anxious on his colorful clothing and sadly, this weakness of his had strikes again that night.

The boy had looked vulnerable and totally harmless laying limp on that bed on his fancy clothes and carefully placed arm covers, his beauty was undeniable, he looked like Eiji, bright and innocent Eiji and Shorter was lost.

Yau-Si was kind and polite to them, offered them food and shelter and access to all information on his home even now that his father was missing for six months and counting.

“Can I ask what is going on?” He had said softly “Who are you?” He asked and his voice trembled just so, his shoulders drawn in delicately.

Eiji had looked worried for the younger boy in a way that made him remember the Japanese boy had told him vaguely of a little sister back home, made him remember Nadia back home. Ash had ignored him, because his friend had always been able to single out what was important and disregarding the rest and right now what was important was finding out what was inside the dated computer sitting on the middle of a thrashed study.

And showing off to Eiji apparently, but that was alright, Ash was seventeen, Shorter could cut him some slack

Yau-Si continued appearing completely trust worthy, he was the picture of a polite little rich boy going through some rough patch, caught in the middle of a shitstorm that to people like Shorter and to people like Ash was daily occurrence. The young boy was looking at Ash crowding over the computer with a worried and confused expression before turning his dark gaze to the Japanese, more specifically his arms.

“Dinner is ready if you are hungry” the voice of the old lady they had found first came from the door, she sported a thick gauze on her forehead but otherwise looked thoroughly neat and orderly, she looked like the old ladies that would look disapprovingly at him since before he could remember, but just like her master, was nothing but polite and well-mannered.

“In a minute” he called before trailing behind her.

Shorter tried to refocus his attention to the task at hand even if he knew Ash could crack infinitely more complicated pieces of technology than this ratty old computer well on his own.

“Can you look him up?” Ash asked, barely tilting his head on Shorter’s direction, more a request than a real inquiry; Shorter didn’t doubt Ash’s abilities and Ash was polite enough not to doubt his. Though he couldn’t say he wasn’t surprised by it.

“Something wrong?”

“I don’t know, just…He’s too quiet”

Ash had always been good at knowing what he needed to focus on and Ash trusted Shorter.

That was their fourth mistake.

“I’m sorry if this is bold of me, but would you like to borrow some new ones?”

Eiji felt himself startle as he left the room, Ash and Shorter still inside it muttering to themselves. He turned around quick only to discover Yau-Si to his left, hovering next to the door _‘Had he been there the whole time?’_

It was a little disquieting, but Eiji found himself smiling despite himself, it came to him like a second skin almost after what felt like a whole life of being a big brother, he honestly couldn’t remember himself as anything but that and smiling kindly to a scared kid even if you are scared yourself was a rule in the handbook. It didn’t really matter that the kid was only three years younger than him, the poor boy had been on his own for almost six months and as someone who has live through having a parent far away and (probably) in danger, Eiji could relate.

His smile turned confused after registering that he had been asked a question _‘New ones? New whats?_ ’ Eiji followed Yau-Si’s line of vision and he ended up looking at his own arms, currently protected with what once had been white fabric, now an ugly yellow-ish grey with fading brown stains, the thought of where _(or who)_ those came from made his gut twist and his smile falter. Not only his arm-cover’s weren’t white anymore, but they also had flying ends after he had scrubbed them to death on a creek and worn them down for over a week, they definitely had seen better days and where more than ready for a deserved retirement.

Eiji now looked over Yau-Si’s own arms and found them covered with silk-like fabric a soft pearl color with delicate golden trim, they looked like the kind of covers kids from more expensive schools back home wore, pretty and comfortable where Eiji’s had always been functional, _‘sensible’_ his Oba-san had called them with frugal approval.

He felt a blood rush to his cheeks and instinctively he drew his arms toward himself.

“Oh, no, I could not- ” Eiji began but he was interrupted.

“Oh I insist” The younger boy said with a warm smile “Please, I know how important it is to feel your arms protected and those can’t possibly be doing much for you”

Eiji tried to refuse a couple of times more but in the end he was taken to Yau-Si’s room and handed a set of arm-covers, they felt soft like cotton and were a solid black but had a symphony of soft whites, pinks and yellows threaded into it to from the outlines of flowers, plum blossoms he noted. Eiji had never possessed anything more beautiful in his entire life, except perhaps the colors that clustered on his skin, though that was more of a personal appreciation.

“Are you sure you do not mind? This are very beautiful I do not want to take them from you” He said, almost begging, he felt like a clumsy kid that had to handle the fancy china for the first time under the watchful eye of his mother.

“It’s really no problem, you all look like you have been through some difficulties, I only want to help you with what I can”

Yau-Si said this looking to his own hands for a moment before raising black eyes to Eiji’s brown ones and for less than a second Eiji felt like he was being coldly analyzed by those eyes.

It was over quickly and Eiji felt whiplash, like he had just had a short hallucination because Yau-Si looked nothing less than _‘doe-eyed’_. Eiji found himself smiling to him again.

“Yes you could say that, I have certainly had more experiences than what I had planned when coming to the US” He chuckled “But I guess that comes with following Ash”

Yau-Si tilted his head to the side looking like a little kid, even though he was almost the same height as Eiji was (even if he was three years younger, but Eiji wasn’t thinking about that _‘Why was everyone in the US so tall?´_ ) “Follow him? I thought you were here with the photographer, Ibe-San was it?”

“Oh! I am! But well…” Eiji laughed a little nervously, suddenly caught off guard, what was he supposed to say? That Ibe had practically begged him to leave with him, but instead Eiji had been dead-set on following Ash around like a lost puppy? That he felt responsible for the death of his secret older brother or guilty over Skipper returning to the foster system after the police found him with a shot wound? Or that he would rather face all the atrocities he had and more just to follow Ash and that feeling, so familiar and yet strange, that impulse to protect the younger boy, his soulmate… Eiji didn’t think he was supposed to say any of that so he settled with laughing awkwardly and lying “I- I only meant that we are all, you know, following the same… Uh… story, so…”

Eiji wasn’t a good liar.

But Yau-Si for some reason didn’t seem disappointed with that answer; maybe he was just that polite, but he looked Eiji up and down, briefly stopping on his wrist, and smiled knowingly at him all the same.

“I see” He smiled prettily at him and Eiji could only return it.

“You’ll be a burden, go back to Japan”

For a full second Eiji thought he was dreaming, because that phrase is exactly what his traitorous brain would whisper to him late at night. The fact that the orangey rays of sunset crashed on Ash’s fair skin giving it color and making his hair a molten gold color didn’t help the dream theory, he was always beautiful, but right in that moment he was breathtaking. If only he wasn’t breaking Eiji’s heart in the process.

“I can’t refuse, can I?” He asks turning his face to the sunset, because looking at the sun is less painful, he smiles sadly and distantly thinks they would make a pretty picture right about now, the golden hour casting his insecurities and sadness in the most gorgeous light “I can’t even protect myself. All I have done is slow you down”

“That’s not true. You saved Skipper and I” Ash’s voice says and for the first time it doesn’t sound like he is reading some sort of script. Eiji quickly turns to protest but Ash cuts him off “That was the first time somebody helped me without asking for anything in return. Those who fed me or gave me a place to sleep always wanted something in return”

Eiji feels his blood boiling and sadness seeping through at those worlds, but it isn’t until Ash continues “Like sex” he says with a humorless laugh, that Eiji realizes what’s happening, what Ash is really doing as he keeps on with his monologue. Eiji knows it’s not less real, all he has had to do and has had done to him, but he can’t really listen to him “I envy you for not needing a gun in life” he says and it doesn’t make it hurt any less knowing he’s saying it for show, to convince Eiji of something he wouldn0t be able to convince him of any other way than the hard, crude way.

“You and I live in different worlds” Ash declares, finally meeting his eye head on. It does nothing to lessen the blow.

“I understand” Eiji tells him even though is a lie and he is not good with lies so he looks to his feet, to his fiddling hands falling limply at his sides. To his covered arms. “Can I have some time to think this over?” he turns back to the sunset because he has to look away, has to… To what? “I need to sort out my feelings” He mutters without thinking about it, his hand gripping painfully tight over the ocean green mark that seemed to mock him under the borrowed arm-covers.

“Sure. You can do what I can’t”

And Eiji had seen Ash kill and deceive people by now multiple times, but it wasn’t until now that he truly learned that he could be brutal. Eiji feels oddly cold under the heavy sun.

Ash leaves after that and soon after Ibe-san comes and takes his place.

Eiji is not sure what Ibe-san sees when he looks at him, but it must remind him of those dark months back home a little too much, because he hurries to explain that Ash had only said what he said because he had asked him to.

“That’s alright” Eiji tells him. He doesn’t know at what time in their journey Japanese felt odd to his own ears “I’m older that him and yet he’s the one that has to protect me… I’m fine with it, but…” The purple-ish clouds look blurry all of a sudden and he feels a pang on his chest not only for the soulmate that just rejected him, but for all the ones he himself had left behind. What had been the point of it? What had Eiji been trying to prove? Leaving it all behind.

Since he was young and colors started painting his skin more and more he came to a realization. As much as it was a blessing to be joined to so many wonderful people throughout his life, it was also a responsibility, when each soulmate gives him a piece of themselves, he gives one back, though not many people have to give out as much of themselves as he has, not many people understand how scary it is, to have his soul in the hands of so many people, but he does. He knows how it is and he left them anyway, he hasn’t even called.

“… Hearing him say it makes me question why I came here on the first place”

Perhaps going back to Japan… was what he had to do next.

That’s not what happens though. He doesn’t feel the moment his body stops functioning and he falls unconscious, he doesn’t feel when he gets picked up carefully and laid tenderly on the backseat of a car or when that car takes his body away and away to a destination unknown.

Eiji doesn’t return to Japan because there is one more mistake left.

The final mistake that would unravel hell for all of them, funnily enough wasn’t a mistake at all, but rather the worse luck Shorter Wong could have possibly experience.

He truly thought he would be able to do it, press the knife all the way down and be done with it, his boys back home would protect Nadia, he knows they would, Sing would make sure of it.

Hell, even Ash would put all his forces towards that goal and his sister would be fine. More importantly, she would understand, she was good at that, understanding things and people alike, she was good with people. She was the kind of person that could start a full-blown war for a loved one but also would take food out of her own mouth to feed the street kids from China Town.

People like that, kind hearted people, would rather lose it all and even die, they would understand that _he_ would rather die than give in to people as dirty as the Lee’s for one second more.

Shorter thought he was ready to push the knife all the way down, soil his hands one more time before probably offing himself right after, to rid everyone else from the trouble, but _it_ stopped him

The final mistake that wasn’t a mistake.

His bad luck.

That deep, blood-like red line that crossed his wrist the second his hand circled around Yut-Lung’s throat stopped him from moving, from breathing all together and Shorter was lost.

It was like the music box but so much worse.

No matter what he did he was screwed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, if I thought last week I was tired... that doesn't even compare to the mess this week has been.  
> Long story short, my cat (who I love more than anything) almost died, but now is recovering, thank god!  
> I'm so happy that he's back home from the clinic that I kinda started writing(?? I fixed and edited what I had written some time ago and I hope you all like it!!  
> Please comment if you do, each comment cheers me up so much you guys don't even know!  
> I hope everyone is having a good week and is staying safe! Sorry for the angst!


	14. 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Mentioned rape, child abuse and child sexual abuse.

Ying Yue was born among rot and grime on a lazy summer afternoon on her mother’s deathbed, her mother was barely over nineteen when she bled out and left this world in a single afternoon, she never even got to hold her, her breast were filled with milk her baby never got to drink when she gave her last tired breath and Yue was bathed and given to her father on a raggedy blanket.

Ying Yue was the last of the four children her mother had birthed, she was the smallest and also the prettiest; the old ladies that lived in the cages of Hong Kong with her and her family had fed her watered-down milk and all kind of tricks and medicines they had learned from their own mothers decades ago. It had kept her alive, but it had made her sickly too.

That was not all bad, she could guilt almost anyone into giving her some coins or food if she looked at them a certain way or tugged her braids just right whenever she went with her father further into the city, she and her siblings spreading around and trying to out-beg the other hungry kids skulking around while their dad tried to sell anything and everything he could get his hands on.

Not having a mother not only left her frail but also came with other little disadvantages like the fact that she only started speaking when she was almost four years old. She didn’t know this wasn’t normal, but it was all she could do when neither her siblings nor her dad ever spoke to her, they didn’t really speak much amongst themselves either, they conducted their lives in silence and hunger and such was the way things were for girls like her.

Only her sister, the eldest and only other girl ever spoke to her sometimes, but they weren’t things she particularly liked hearing.

 _‘Your fault’_ and _‘Killed mom’_ were some of her sister’s favorites.

She also never touched that many people, she never had a mom to run her fingers through her hair or a dad who gave affectionate hugs or siblings that cared to play with her, in fact, if they didn’t need to pile up on cages to live she probably wouldn’t experience human contact at all, that was fine too, at least none of them were beating her like the parents of that other kid that asked for food near her corner.

That child, probably a few years older than Ying Yue, would come limping and bleeding, for a while she thought it was genius, a play to collect more earnings, but after the first couple of times it happened she realized that while people liked to wash their guilt by giving spare change to kids like them, no one liked to watch the ugly truth; they would rather give some coins to a pretty girl with braided up hair asking nicely than to the purple eyed girl right next to her. The only one who seemed to prefer that girl was that old man with the bodyguards and fancy clothes who would give him some money and some food and then take the kid with him for a couple of hours. The day the kid stopped going to that corner she counted herself lucky, a whole corner to herself.

She should have known better.

The man soon approached her, gave her more money than she would earn on a week and patted her head with a gloved hand, she had bowed and thanked him and done the exact same routine when it kept happening, sometimes it was money, other it was food –sweets and a bag of rice or bread, even some cheese once– once he had even gifted her with the most beautiful ribbons for her braids, that went on for a few weeks.

Then he started taking.

First he took her, gave money and an apartment to his father and some clothes and food to her siblings and her dad happily delivered her on the old man’s doorstep.

Again, it was not all bad. She had doctors and teachers, pretty clothes and decadent feasts, there were even other children, though they too started to disappear as time went by until only she remained.

Lee Hong Lung was the smartest, kindest and also the worst human being she ever met. Oddly, he was more of a father than her own ever was, the servant he appointed to her when she turned eleven more of a mother than she ever had, he would have his gardener plant the flowers she liked most and the chef cook her favorite dishes on her birthday, but he also took her to his bed practically each night.

Ying Yue hated him to the core and threw up each night after he rolled over and fell asleep, but also thought that was probably what love was, because what else could the colored line on her wrist mean?

Master Lee had explained it to her, back when she was ten and had first arrived, that she had his mark on her and thus belonged to him, he never mentioned what it meant that he too had her mark engraved on his wrinkly skin, yellow prominent and sharp.

“Yellow is traditionally considered to belong to royalty, did you know?” He says as he kisses the inside of her wrist.

Master Lee taught her almost everything she knew, how to play chess and mancala, how to read and seat and bow properly, he told her all she ever knew about soulmates, said it meant belonging, possession, destiny.

_“You are mine, dearest, and so it was always meant to be”_

Ying Yue doesn’t really care for it, can’t really find sense on his words, because in the books he makes her read they narrate soulmates as some magical gift from the gods, a bond to fill her with love and companionship, she wouldn’t say she felt so loved as the poems and classical writers moaned about on paper, but they are each other’s only mark and Master Lee had, indeed, been her closest companion, so she guesses he must be right and that soulmates are just not quite like they were on her books.

It isn’t until she turns fifteen that she realizes she had been wrong, because that’s the year Yut Lung is born. Master Lee claims to have named him after her, both their names meaning the moon, but she doesn’t really care for the baby boy’s name as much as she cares for the deep blue soulmark that they were gifted with, it’s not until then that she feels it, that bond, that love, not just companionship.

And _oh_ , does she love him. All flowers seem to wither compared to him, the sun isn’t bright or warm enough to compete when Yut Lung gives his first cry, when she feeds him from her breast and sings him melodies with no words on them so he falls asleep.

He gives her the best six years of her life, much like his father he teaches her things, for example he teaches her to cry from happiness, teaches her pride. He teaches her that what she had felt before had never been love, that soulmates could actually be like in the books and so much more. He even teaches her to actually tolerate Master Lee, because Yut Lung, unlike his other children, causes the old man to come to life, he smiles and ruffles the boy’s hair and she could actually believe it was all worth it.

Ying Yue feels happy for the first time and it’s such a precious feeling, she can only feel anger and rage when she feels it taken away from her.

That’s the last thing Yut Lung saw of her, it wasn’t the screams or the tears or the fear that enveloped her at first, but that fury on her eyes as her last breath is raped out of her by his brothers and the black line that scars his wrist and leaves him feeling cold.

At sixteen Yut Lung can barely remember the exact hue of blue that once marked him and his mother as bonded, his mind, much like his skin, had rotten and intoxicated little by little with oozing black, crawling inside his head and dancing behind his eyelids each hour of every day since he was stolen out of Hong Kong by his siblings and his body got used over and over again.

That scarring black was in his thoughts and in his nightmares, it was on his sweetest dreams where he imagined tearing his brothers apart limb by limb, taking everything away from them, all of it for _her_.

His brothers destroy every evidence that his mother ever existed, there were no paintings or pictures, no letters or diaries, no dog-eared books, all her jewelry had been burned and her clothes torn apart, only the Gods know what they did with her body, Yut Lung was sure he wouldn’t even remember her face if he wasn’t forced to look at it each day in the mirror, raging fire behind his eyes just like hers.

He doesn’t even remember her stories, which books she read to him or what was the melody on her songs, barely even remembers her name.

Here’s what he does remember:

When his father and mother had both lived he had worn no covers on his arms, neither of them had; Yut Lung remembers his parents sharing a yellow mark while he and his mother a blue one, his father would have a habit of kissing the marks on his mother’s arm and she would wear a controlled emotionless face, the slightest twist of her lips signaling displeasure that would turn warm the second she looked at him.

Her eyes had been black and her skin fair, Yut Lung was her splitting image if only he didn’t have his father’s light brown eyes.

Other thing he remembers: His mother adored the idea of soulmates, at least to an extent. She never talked about her and ‘Master Lee’s’ mark, but she could go on for days about their own, she would read to him –slowly and with difficulty– her favorite quotes from books and recite her favorite lyrics from the old songs Master Lee had taught her, all came down to the belief that soulmates were destiny, could mean love and so much more.

“When you find other people to share your soul with other than me, keep them by your side” She had said once, her arm around his shoulders as he laid his head on her chest and herd her heart beating strongly “It may hurt, but they are your gifts from the Gods, they gifted me to Master Lee and in turn he gifted me with you, my little moon”

He had been five at the time and had believed every word that came from her mouth, had trusted it to be the truth and never questioned it, never got another mark to go with hers neither, so Yut Lung decided there wasn’t much to think about, really. His mother had been the only soulmate he would ever get, she had loved him like no one else ever had or would love him and then she died and that was that.

He lived through his life, if it could even be called that, believing that and on himself, in a world where everyone was fake and all plans were convoluted he lived with the certainty that everything he did was towards a higher goal, all he endured and smiled through would amount to something bigger so he never doubted himself, never thought twice about who he was lying to, who got which poison and who he sold to buy himself another day.

The annoying bunch that arrived to LA was no different, they were all pieces on his game and he was playing for the long haul. At first he thought only Ash Lynx stood out, the beautiful beast everyone was so afraid of, the genius who heard him coming even when Yut Lung had been trying to hide.

It wasn’t until Ash Lynx arrived that he thought of soulmates again, because if anyone was to be bonded to Yut Lung it had to be someone like Ash, right? For the first time in his life he found someone who could know what it was like to be surrounded by the scum of the earth, to be brutalized and stomped over by people who should be beneath you.

And yet, when their skin touched nothing happened, he only feels disappointed for a moment before he tells himself this just means less distractions, less feelings, more chances to win.

Ash Lynx has a bright purple line crossing his right wrist, carries it unashamed and unafraid, that doesn’t surprise him at all, it is common knowledge that the leaders of Chinatown and Manhattan are soulmates, that’s big part of the reason peace has been able to remain on those sectors of New York City, most others won’t bother trying to steal territory from either of them knowing that if one of those two is threatened the other would most likely step up to back them up.

No, that’s no news at all, it was information relegated to him by his spies and officially given to him by his brother when he was assigned this mission. What _does_ intrigue him is actually the curiously placed bandaging taunting him from Ash’s left arm.

Could it just be an injury from his journey from New York to LA? Sure, but Yut Lung hadn’t survived this long by just trusting what was most likely. Each time he was presented with new information his brain came up with all the possibilities, all the outcomes probable or not and formulated a plan accordingly. Find the weakest link and put pressure on it.

Obviously he went to Eiji, how Shorter Wong could thing they were alike was beyond him. Even while playing the part of Yau-Si Dawson, innocent rich boy heartbroken by the sudden disappearance of his father, Yut Lung could never be that bland, he was sure. Never in his life had he been as clueless as Okumura Eiji, the Japanese boy looked more like a Disney cartoon animal than he did a nineteen year old adult, what was he even doing here in the first place?

_‘I thought you were here with the photographer, Ibe-San was it?’_

His answer came in the form of a single look, shy and unintentional, so quick any other would have missed it, but Yut Lung wasn’t like any other person and he caught Eiji’s dark brown eyes wandering to his own arms, pink tinting his cheeks, hand contracting slightly. His left hand.

A second soulmate

That wasn’t in the information given to him neither by his brothers of by his own spies and servants and that would have been fine if it were anyone else, if it only made any sense at all, but it didn’t, it couldn’t.

It couldn’t because Ash Lynx was supposed to be like him, the jade eyed beast from New York that had his brothers making deals with god-forsaken Dino Golzine was the only living being that should be able to understand, to share this need burning him from the inside out, the yearning of something bigger, of vengeance and domination, but how could that be when he allowed such hindrances to follow him around, when he readily –or the Gods forbid, _happily_ – accepted Eiji Okumura on his space, touching his hand in congratulations and smiling at him like he was any other person and not a monster with an angel’s face.

It was all almost too easy.

Yut Lung felt that crippling sense of boredom come over him like it always did when he was forced to do menial tasks for his brothers when he could be using his brain to do _so much more_. He was playing chess and his opponent had just knocked out his own king, hell he had knocked out his entire set of pieces.

Watching Ash lie to Eiji, asking him to leave and how that left the prior with a crushed spirit and drinking mournfully near the kitchen sink and the latter crying and clinging to the older Japanese man’s shoulder as he hugged him made him nauseous.

Not even Shorter Wong sneaking into his room and defying him brought any more difficulty to the game, they still had his sister´s well-being over his head and hence he was but a puppet to him.

Surprisingly enough, the only real obstacle didn’t come from anyone else but himself, or maybe he could blame some sadist deity for the dark red line that appears on his skin and ruins everything.

“Fuck” Shorter’s wrathful expression pales and slackens as the pressure his hand is placing on Yut Lung’s throat lessens, the knife pushing down towards him hesitates. They freeze– suddenly the game didn’t fill as such.

Because this feeling –warm and filling–he had felt it before, a lifetime ago, back when black eyes looked at him with so much love, black eyes that could be filled with so much pain and so much rage. It feels like they are looking at him now, from above and framed by a completely different face, but just as dark, just as pained, just as angry.

“FUCK” Shorter yells and looks destroyed, his eyes filling with angry tears as his strength on his neck returns and he plunges the knife down right next to Yut Lung’s face. “I used to respect you, y’know” He gasps “My parent’s always said that it was thanks to the Lee’s that people like us could survive in this foreign land, so no matter the rumors I never doubted you, but now…” the laugh he emits is anything but humorous, hot tears crash against Yut Lung’s face and he’s surprises to feel they leave him with a heaviness on his stomach.

“You’re just like Golzine and his men, parasites sucking the life out of everyone else! I thought you looked like Eiji, but I was wrong you can’t be more different. You’re nothing but a venomous snake and you know what’s worse!?” The weight lifts from on top of him and Yut Lung is left feeling cold on the bed, Shorter stepping away and leaving his knife behind “What’s worse is I’m no better! You have me under your fucking thumb” Yut Lung feels like he’s no longer talking to him, feels like an outsider, a spectator to a monologue. He silently sits up, some of his long black strands of hair fall off and stay in the bed and he sees as Shorter raises his newly marked right arm, tears now flowing freely from his laugh contorted face “No wonder we’re soulmates, I’m just as rotten as you, aren’t I”

He doubts the other man expects an answer from him so he stays silent as the other has what looks like a mental breakdown, his body crashing down to the chair in front of the bed and his head going into his hands, he’s the picture of desperation.

They stay like that for what feels like eons and Yut Lung, for the first time since he can remember, can’t think, his mind is clouded and screaming, because this wasn’t part of the plan! This wasn’t supposed to happen to him! Not ever, but least of all now!

_–Mother, what should I do? How do I avenge you now!? –_

_‘When you find other people to share your soul with other than me, keep them by your side’_

“Master Yut Lung, you have a message from Master Hua Lung” Came the solemn voice of the servant his brother had sent to check on him, dear lord, they were so badly trained she didn’t even check to see if he was alone, his own spies would never be so careless.

“I’m coming” He called, voice calm even if his hands were shaking and he didn’t dare to look at the other man in the room.

_‘It may hurt, but they are your gifts from the Gods’_

This doesn’t feel like a gift, it feels like a curse, this ruins the plan just when he feels his victory just in reach, just when he’s closer than ever…

_–Oh, mother will you forgive me? –_

He stands up stiffly and reaches for the knife still stuck on the bed and takes a moment to examine it before taking in a steading breath, securing his hold on the hilt and walking towards the other man in the room. Shorter’s head remains on his hands even as he hears him getting closer, only his shoulders tensing up are a sign that he even notices Yut Lung.

“Will you kill me now?” He asks quietly, tiredly, finally raising his hear to look at him with empty eyes “I won’t hurt either of them, not ever. And I now I can’t really hurt you either, can I?” He laughs humorlessly.

Yut Lung’s hold on the knife becomes painful when he finally reaches him; he takes a moment to breath, to give himself a chance to act differently, to give himself a way out. And then he switches his hold to the blade, effectively presenting the hilt to its owner. Shorter’s eyes widen slightly and confusion takes over his features. Yut Lung sighs.

“You _will_ kidnap Okumura Eiji” He says steadily and then when Shorter starts to protest he rushes to say “You will kidnap him and prove your loyalty to us, keep your sister safe and then…” _Gods, mother, anyone please help him_ “…Then you will disappear. Leave the rest to me”

“What!? Like hell–!”

“Shorter Wong” He says and in his voice rumbles all the authority his birthright grants him, it does its job to quiet the other boy “This goes way deeper that you know, this plan is already in motion and neither you nor I can stop it but… I give you my word; I’ll keep Eiji Okumura as safe as I’m able”

His own words felt bitter on his tongue, defeat permeated his veins.

“And leave Ash on his own–!?” He keeps arguing.

“You won’t be of any help to him and he won’t want your help after he finds out what you did”

“Then I’ll go with Eiji, I’ll keep him safe”

“If you go you’ll only play into their game!” Why couldn’t he understand? “Don’t you get it? They want to hurt Ash; if you walk into this willingly you’ll only give them another knife with which to stab him!” He waves the knife still in his hand for good measure and Shorter quiets down, eyes locking on the knife and finally taking it from him.

“And why would I ever trust you?” It’s a fair question and not one Yut Lung has the time or the spirit to go into, so he settles with a second best. He gives a step back and slowly raises his right arm and shakily removes his arm covers, he hasn’t done this in front of other person since he has six years old and suddenly he wishes Shorter had been braver and simply stabbed him or even better, strangled him to death.

Silk falls from his arm and reveals their newly acquired dark red mark and just under it, closest to his hand, an ugly black one, he doesn’t allow himself to look and instead analyses Shorter’s reaction. To his merit, he keeps his cool and barely raises his eyebrows before turning his gaze to him.

“Because this is not a feeling I wish to experience again”

Silence falls upon them again for enough time for Yut Lung to feel uncomfortable and cover his arm again, he doesn’t have time for this, Hua-Lung’s message is waiting for him and he has a new plan to formulate. He’s about to leave when Shorter stands up, he towers over him, but his head hung low and slumped shoulders aren’t threatening. His knife’s still on his hand.

“I swear on my parent’s grave, if you hurt them…" He chokes up as fire returns to his eyes and for just a moment Yut Lung can see his mother and thinks that maybe, _maybe_ , this might be the right path; maybe this is his rode to avenging his mother.

“Do your part and I’ll do mine” He says curtly “Not a word to anyone about this”

Yut Lung turns on his heel and leaves the room quietly, walking to a different room where a phone call is waiting for him. His brother’s servant is standing next to the phone to him, her eyes following his every move, Yut Lung studies her carefully.

“How much did you hear and how much have to told my brother already?” This could be bad, Yut Lung’s brain is already planning, strategizing on a way to get rid of her quietly if she hasn’t talked yet or, hopefully not, a way to damage control if she already has, but she simply smiles at him knowingly.

“I cared for Lady Yau Ying since she was ten years old” her decrepit voice feels like a slap in the face “I didn’t hear anything at all, Master Lee” She says as she hands him the phone and leaves the room.

His heart’s still beating strongly as he dials Hua Lung’s number. He doesn’t like this, hates feeling like he doesn’t know what’s happening, hates not having a plan.

“What the hell took you so long?” His brother’s loud voice yelled annoyed from the other side of the line and it effectively snaps him from this haze Shorter Wong placed upon him and reminds him of who he is and what he has to do.

“I beg your forgiveness, dear brother, but I do believe the information I collected might be of use to you” He replies sweetly, his stomach twists into knots as Hua Lung lets out an angry breath of air and impatiently waits for him to go on. Yut Lung savors his nervousness.

“So?? Out with it! I don’t have all day”

Yut Lung takes a deep breath of air and thinks of fiery black eyes staring crying and screaming to get to him, thinks of fiery black eyes looking down on him as hands choke the air out of him and tears drip on his face and thinks of Hua Lung’s arms holding him back, hot breath on his neck as he laughs and of his hands running through his hair and over his skin.

“Ash Lynx has a second soulmate, his name is Okumura Eiji and I can get him for you tonight”

He can practically see his brother’s satisfied smile stretching his appalling face, his voice drips sugary compliments on his ear and for the first time Yut Lung doesn’t feel the need to recoil, he doesn’t have the time to, he’s already coming up with a plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm back! Please don't hate me for making you wait so much.  
> I want to thank everyone who commented, you really motivate me to keep writing, specially at times like this.  
> I wrote before that my cat was sick (shout out to the ones who hoped he got better, you're too sweet) and well, he's getting better but really slowly, we have to feed him and give him water and medicine every few hours and its very tiring, not to mention emotionally exhausting. Also I'm on final's week, so yeah...  
> But anyway, thank you for your patiance and your kind words, hope you like this chapter!


	15. 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Referenced abuse and sexual abuse, nothing explicit.

A life time ago, when Aslan still existed, he used to spend hours laying on the grass under the shade of that old tree Griffin taught him how to climb, he would stare at the branches and the leaves as his brother read to him a novel or a poem or maybe just existed quietly beside him, doing his homework and planning for a future that would never come.

He would lay there and he would gaze upwards for hours, there was something exciting in the way the things he saw at first glance would transform before his very eyes if only he stared long enough. The branches weren’t just branches, there where bugs and beetles roaming it, camouflaging with its color and texture, the leaves moved and suddenly there were birds. He would look past the leaves and the branches and he would stare at clouds, fluffy and moving so fast – _It was always so windy in Cape Cod_ – until they turned into all sorts of figures and faces.

It always astounded him that once he bore witness to the metamorphosis he could never see blanches and leaves anymore, he could never just see clouds again once shapes and faces took their place.

It sort of feels like that.

Ash didn’t think he had anything in common left between him and Aslan, but here it was, that same feeling of realization, like in the blink of an eye he realized he had been blind. He wishes he could see what he had before, to see the clouds instead of the face; His face.

Shorter wasn’t trying to hide; he placed himself deliberately and in plain sight when they arrived back to the house. The hot white sense of urgency, the nauseating feeling of something being very wrong and having no idea what it was, but the certainty that any second wasted trying to get there only increased the gravity of the situation.

Shorter always had felt like his one and only true home to Ash, which was bizarre and absurd because Ash had never had a home to begin with, Cape Cod had never been a home to anybody, not really, but the he had lived a life in the cold and Shorter Wong and the soulmark that came with him were like a light in the dark.

“Eiji! Ibe!” Ash ran inside screaming, though a part of him knew already that no answer would come, he couldn’t shake the feeling of adrenaline coursing through his veins, accelerating his breathing. He was gonna kill Yau-Si, that lying snake.

“What the hell happened here!?” Max’s voice was hoarse and he had a grave expression on his face, he looked to be on the brink of something and a part of Ash’s head acknowledged that this day must be like a never-ending nightmare to the old man. Leaving Jessica and Michael behind after what had happened weighted on him and seeing his younger friend unconscious on the floor of the empty house was the cherry on top.

At first glance he looked almost dead, his eyes were slightly open but unseeing, his face twisted in frozen pain; once Ash saw it he couldn’t unsee it. He doesn’t miss the fact that Eiji is nowhere in sight and suddenly his lungs are in a vice grip, he whips his head around and now Shorter was on his feet, his stance was exhausted but also ready, like he expected an attack he wasn’t really trying to fend off. Ash narrowed his eyes, he didn’t trust himself to speak out loud.

“He’s OK” Shorter says not meeting Ash’s eyes and looking at Max and Ibe instead or at least in their general direction. His voice is hollow and brittle and so wrong. “He’s awake… he can’t move that’s all… Should go away anytime now”

“Shorter” Ash calls and feels his breath pick up pace “Where’s Eiji?” the machinery inside his head is creaking and moving after it had violently halted, the shock was fading off. For a moment they just stared at each other, neither able nor willing to speak another word –it feels oddly like a goodbye.

“They took him”

“Yau Si” Ash spitted out the name like poison “I knew he was a fucking spy”

“Yut-Lung, actually” Shorter answers, eyes fixed and resigned “Lee Yut-Lung”

Wang-Lung’s betrayal is not particularly shocking, he had always expected it, though it did surprise him a bit they would use Shorter like that. Unlike Dino and he, Chinatown was loyal and had good relations with the Lee’s, they had a mutually beneficial agreement, a symbiosis of sorts; the Lee’s provided and people like Shorter executed while still remaining mostly free-willed.

Ash out of all people should’ve known better; there’s no such thing as free will in a world that had Dino Golzine, Wang-Lung Lee in it, a world with soulmates and soulmarks. Ash catches a glimpse of the blood-red line crossing Shorter’s wrist and feels his rage return tenfold.

“He’s you soulmate” He can’t take his eyes away from it, his voice sounds clipped and his heart beats so loud on his ears he can barely hear Ibe groaning from the living room.

“Shit, man… I don’t even know what to say” Shorter says then and it’s like all fight leaves his body and he runs a hand through his wild purple hair. When he looks up again his shades slip down his nose and Ash is granted a glimpse at red rimmed eyes. “I would never let anything happen to Eiji, you know that” He begins and he sounds desperate, begging, but it only makes something nasty and twisted inside Ash glad “They threatened to hurt Nadia, but I was gonna kill him anyways! –Yut-Lung... But then this damned thing shows up and–”

“And what!?” He was yelling again, but he didn’t care. He was being torn apart “You just sold Eiji out for what? A freaking line in your arm!? You could’ve told me, we could’ve done something!”

“I was gonna go with him!” Shorter raising his voice somewhat cuts through the fog circling all around them and makes Ash realize he’s panting, his hands are shaking and worst of all, his eyes where blurring and he hated it, but he couldn’t help it, because he was losing him and it _wasn’t. Fucking. Fair._

“And do what!? If the Lee’s have him it means Dino can get him!” A horrible thought was creeping in, it had since the first time he met Eiji “He looks like he’s fucking fifteen, Shorter and you know! I know you do, you know what Dino can do!” words were spiraling out of his mouth like vomit, violent and without restriction, he felt sick.

“I wouldn’t have let them touch him, Ash I promise you I was ready to die with him if I had to” And Ash can believe him, if not for the break on his voice or the moisture on his friend’s eyes, because he knew he wasn’t the only one who cared for the Japanese boy. Eiji and Shorter had taken to one another like fire and gasoline, it had warmed something inside his chest to see them, to be with them, but now that only made it hurt more.

“No” Ash muttered “No, they would’ve just used you too” The fact that they were soulmates had never been a secret, they had been too young and stupid to hide it well and it had helped cement a solid truce between their men, calmed things down a bit.

“Yut-Lung said he would protect him” Shorter supplies, like it means something, perhaps to him it does or maybe it’s just what he has been telling himself the whole day to be able to bear the truth.

A faint memory, half-forgotten claws its way out of the grime and mess that is his head and he can almost see her; can see kind eyes and kind hands helping with his wounds even if no mark bonded them, her eyes had been blue and her hair used to be a very light brown before it stained red and clung to her sunk-in skull and unseeing eyes, the last time Dino had someone he cared for in his possession.

And Ash can’t think, can’t do anything with the loud white-noise plummeting inside his head, his heart hammers inside his ribcage in a sickly familiar way; it has been years since he had a panic attack, especially in front of other people, but Eiji is not here and Shorter lied and now Dino is involved and he _can’t think_ –because if Dino is involved and Eiji is not here that must mean…

Before realizing what he’s doing he rips the bandage off his arm and allows himself to stare, to feel air entering his lungs finally. This shouldn’t be his top priority, he knows, he should think of the paralyzed man in the next room over, about running away before someone else comes after them, he should worry about surviving, but he has been surviving his entire god-damned life so he allowed himself a moment of reprieve, just a for a bit, at the sight of ocean green on his arm, vibrant and a stark contrast to his pale skin. The relief is short-lived.

“You both know this is a trap, right”

Max had relocated Ibe on the couch where the photographer was fighting to move and make any kind of noise. Max was kneeling on the floor beside him watching them with the composed coolness only war can give a man.

“Most likely” Ash feels immensely tired with all the twists and turns, he wishes he could just fight and everything would be solved, he could either win of die and that was it, no more problems, no more betrayals.

“You need to get outta here then” a bit of emotion had returned to Shorter’s voice, when Ash looked his way he could see his brow pinched in determination.

“We? What about you?” He asks and can’t shake the feeling that he sounds like a kid asking his parents why he had to stay at school without them, even if that was never something he experienced.

“I’ll stay here, slow them down” His voice was filled with surety and Ash’s fists clenched on their own accord.

“No”

“Why the hell not?”

“Because I’m not losing both of you tonight and especially not to them!”

Just as he felt his emotions getting the better of him he felt it, a ringing in his ears that alerted him that danger was near. Before he knew it he had reached for his gun and was pointing it upwards towards the stairs.

Ash would be lying if he said Alexis Dawson was anything but underwhelming, the mysterious owner of the house, the key to a secret bigger than they could ever even imagine was but a middle aged, balding white guy in a crumpled suit claiming, although it had been a long time since Ash had stopped picturing these people as story book monsters, he knew now that the worst monsters could look completely normal if they wished to, hiding claws and teeth behind pompous mansions and Italian designer suits.

The man did prove himself useful by giving an antidote to Ibe, though the Japanese man didn’t seem to be any calmer by being able to move again, not when he still was just as helpless as the rest of them. Still, Ash was like a bomb with a countdown or rather, like a single atom bouncing around a reactor endlessly, producing reaction after reaction inside it with nothing to stop him from eventually blowing the whole thing up, because this was him.

Alexis Dawson may not be the culprit behind Eiji being taken, he didn’t put the soulmarks in Shorter and Yut-Lung’s arms, he wasn’t the one to drug Ibe or threaten Nadia, hell, he wasn’t the one who put Dino Golzine in his life in the first place, but he was the madman that created Banana Fish, the substance that would poison his brother for years and years until nothing but a carcass remained, Alexis was the brother of the man who had shot his brother and Ash was hurt and lost and angry, he was a wild creature with a mortal wound ready to attack anyone who came near and take them with him.

“Listen to me, I don’t have all night!” He screamed at the man kneeling at his feet, gripping the collar of his shirt so tightly he was shocked the fabric didn’t rip apart. He knew he was loosing control of himself because he could hear Max call his name in warning, but he didn’t care “The men your brother’s mixed up with kidnapped my friend”

Maybe it was fear or maybe it was pity but Dawson stopped struggling with a defeated sigh “Fine. Come with me” he said.

The older man started guiding them up the stairs without preamble and Ash followed closely, behind him he could hear Max calming down Ibe, telling him to wait on the couch for them before two sets of footsteps followed them up.

“Not you” Ash called before he even turned around, the authority on his voice effective in halting any movement. Max looked at him questioningly before realizing Ash’s eyes weren’t on him but behind him. Shorter seized the stair rail with force and grounded his teeth.

“Why”

“They left you here to wait for us, knowing I’d either kill you and do their job for them or forgive you and so they would still have you as their little spy. It’s dangerous for you to know more that you already do” Ash was so tired “I can't trust you with more, you know I can't”.

Distantly he noticed Max glancing between the two of them awkwardly being caught in the middle, Ash would’ve laughed at the look on his face if it were any other time, but things as they were he ignored him just as he ignored the way his sight was blurring.

“I know” Shorter hung his head, defeated “Be careful Ash, I’ll… I...I’m sorry”

Ash nods curtly, not quite looking at him as Shorter sighed before he went down the stairs and out of the house into the shadows, Ash didn’t know where nor he could afford to worry about it, his heart pounded painfully, but his head chanted a non-stop mantra of Eiji, Eiji, Eiji, find him, find him, find him, he didn’t have the luxury of wallowing, to crumble or to even stop. Ash marched on upwards and didn’t look back.




There were fingers, fingers touching him, hurting, taking hold of his throat and not letting go. The pressure was added with practiced ease, loose enough for him not to pass out, but tight enough to make his heart panic even if it was far from the first time he had found himself in such position.

“You better not be lying to us”

Wang-Lung was by far the most despicable of his brothers; he was also the smartest and the cruelest. Hua-Lung may be the one who found a sickening thrill in knowing they were related when he touched him, but at least he was fairly easy to manipulate, Hua-Lung asked him if he resented them for raping and murdering his mother. Wang-Lung was the one who relished in it.

“I already gave you Ash Lynx’s soulmate, I told you all I know about the drug. Why would I lie?” His hated it when he did this, hated to be pinned down and the wheezy sound of his voice. He absolutely despised to feel afraid.

“And is that all the information there is?” Wang-Lung asked sweetly, a sugary sweet smile stretching his face as one of his fingers left its spot on his neck and went to caress his cheek, his blunt nail scratching “Why did you let Shorter Wong stay behind?”

“We don’t know what Dino would do with him, we can still use him” Was his quick retort, years of training and deceiving made lying his base reaction, he had no time to panic over this “He’s loyal to our family”

Just as fast as it had come, Wang-Lung’s grip on his neck disappeared, he sagged to the floor the second air rushed desperately into his lungs. His eldest brother sighed looking down at him with pity on his eyes –Their father’s eyes, the eyes all of them shared– and he spoke slowly at him like one would do to explain things to a child.

“He’s loyal to his sister, to his soulmate, the second we don’t have those over his head he’ll flee, he steps a foot in Chinatown we’ll have him brought to us, we can’t trust him anymore”

“But he’s their leader” Yut-Lung tries and ignores how hard it is to speak still “If they find out you killed him there will be a revolt”

“For all they know he’s a traitor, at least that’s what we’ll say. Besides, bury a rat from Chinatown and ten more come out of the gutters to take its place, we’ll just have to get in contact with whoever takes over”

Would that be true? Would it be that easy to tarnish Shorter Wong’s name in front of the people he led? Yut-Lung had scarcely been let outside, living most of his life in mansions and study rooms, he had no idea to what level loyalties reached outside. Their family ruled over Chinatown and he had no idea how it functioned, though, he doubted his brother’s did either.

“Hua-Lung, take the boy to Golzine for me” Wang-Lung ordered still staring him down meanwhile all Yut-Lung could do was gasp and raise a hand to the abused skin “You’ll go with him, prove yourself to us. Golzine doesn’t know anything about you. Get close to him and find out what he’s really after”

Yut-Lung knows better than to protest, instead he put some of his weight on the table he had being slammed into only minutes before and keeps a neutral face as Wang-Lung gets close to him, predatorily close and tilts his face up with his hand to meet his eyes “Don’t worry, I won’t let him kill you. I still have many more uses for you” his breath fans over his face in warm puffs of air, he smells of cigarettes and expensive whisky.

He’s left alone on his brother’s study, he picks himself up and suddenly he can feel something like vile rise up his stomach, warming up his entire body and expanding on his chest; he can barely contain himself from smiling. In the end even the smartest of his brothers is a poor observer, it’s almost not funny how easy it is to withhold information from them, how he only had to take some light choking to be able to successfully hide not only his soulmark, but also something much more important potentially; Banana Fish wasn’t a simple drug. If his theory was true…

His mind raced miles away from where his body was being given to Dino Golzine as a bargaining chip alongside Okumura Eiji. As he’s ordered to wake the other boy up he can’t shake the feeling that he’s already failing on the promise he made to Shorter.

_I’ll keep him as safe as I’m able._

What had possessed him to say such a thing, people like him couldn’t promise anything. He certainly didn’t feel he was keeping Eiji safe when the boy was promply assaulted with Arthur’s jeering threats and Papa Dino’s hungry eyes just as he woke up. Yut-Lung recognizes it must be terribly confusing, in the blink of an eye he was alone in another city, in front of the devil himself, away from his soulmates and with the knowledge that his friend had sold him out.

“Yau-Si! They caught you too?”

Being the sole focus of those big brown eyes was off-putting at best, Eiji was looking at him with so much worry, his hands instinctively reaching for him but not to hurt him, but instead to make sure he was ok. His hands didn’t take od hurt, they hovered and for a brief moment Yut-Lung allowed his mind to wonder if that’s how a big brother is supposed to look at you.

Still Yut-Lung could not understand what it was that draw someone like Ash Lynx to someone like Okumura Eiji, how people like them could be soulmates, how could the get along at all.

Yut-Lung couldn’t understand it.

He was somewhat cute to the common people's eyes he supposes; with his floppy hair, oversized clothes and big, cartoon-animal-like eyes, he fell into the recently popularized perception of eastern beauty, Yut lung could see how his childish features and slim frame would be considered attractive, in an unremarkable and commercial kind of way. There was no finess to it, his beauty (if it could be called that) had nothing polished to it, he was frail where Yut-Lung had worked to be elegant and 'cute' where he had sweat and bled to be beautiful.

No, not beautiful– To be perfect.

Although that may be just it, even if he was younger in age, the Japanese boy’s features made him appear his equal if not younger. He was three years older than Yut-Lung and yet they were the same height. Yut lung’s looks were based on femininity and grace where Eiji’s rely on his youth and if there was one thing he knew of Golzine was that it wasn’t women he preferred, but boys appallingly younger.

He had seen the way his eyes roamed over Okumura Eiji a thousand times, over and over replayed on his own life.

He always thought that if there was a hell he surely would be placed there, he was born out of sin and depravity and had built his own power on pretty much the same, his only saving grace was to think that the level of hell he would reach wouldn’t be the same as his brother’s, his father of Golzine himself.

He wasn’t so sure now.

As he’s instructed to remove Eiji’s clothes in preparation for Golzine’s arrival to the bedrrom they had been left in and is met with little physical resistance, but with terrified eyes he wonders if that’s how he had looked that first time someone had taken him.

The idea itself makes him a little sick in a way he thought he couldn’t get anymore, not after all he’s seen and done to survive, but he had promised Shorter he would keep his friend safe, he had promised to do all he could, no matter how much he grated Yut-Lung’s nerves. No matter how much this dehumanized him just that tiny bit more.

After all, Yut-Lung had never had much free will anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You would not believe the amount of times I deleted and rewrote this, this chapter has been kicking my ass for a while now and still I'm not really satisfied with how it turned out, but hopefully you don't hate it, I guessed it was better to post something short instead of not posting at all.  
> I'm sorry about the wait, but you already know, college, sick cat, pandemic, concentrating has been hard :')  
> Anyway! I hope everyone is doing well, please be safe!
> 
> ps: someone commented on the last chapter and the comment disappeared before I could answer it and I'm not sure if the person who wrote it deleted it or if somehow I did(? I f it was me, I'm so so sorry!!! it was such a nice comment too! :(


	16. 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW: Mentions of sexual abuse

_Calm down. You’ve done this before. Just breathe._

Air felt stale on his lungs, he felt like he had run a marathon, there was a metallic taste on his mouth.

_Breathe in –with your stomach, not your chest. Hold for six seconds. Breathe out in twelve seconds –slowly._

Where he was used to see tanned skin decorated with so much color now there were blood stained arm-covers, but it wasn’t like back at Cape Cod, where Jennifer’s blood had stained them from the outside. Now there were little and bigger spots of burgundy rising through the delicate fabric of Yau-S…Yut-Lung’s arm-covers.

_Close your eyes if it makes it easier. Breathe in. Hold for six. Out in twelve._

There must be people outside the door, because as the natural light of day receded, the chandelier hung over the bed lighted up, illuminating the opulent room in warm colors, all light browns and golds, dark wood and ornamented headboard, from the high ceiling to the soft rug on the floor.

His mother loved wooden accents on rooms, he remembers hearing her talking on the phone with who he could only assume was their widower neighbor from down the street and saying how much she would love a big house with an actual front lawn where she could plant something other than little potted plants, a view of the ocean instead of grey street, big rooms and wooden accents on the walls.

_Clench your fists tight and then let go. Breathe. Six. Out._

After Golzine left, Yut-Lung didn’t stay for long, he looked angry and despondent and he barely spared him a glance when he walked out of the room, escorted by guards, to go get ready for whatever was happening. Only then Eiji remembered he was still naked with only a thin silk sheet for modesty, but he couldn’t move. Yut-Lung had left his clothes neatly folded on a chair by the window, but Eiji couldn’t stand up and reach for them.

 _He struggled to remember the simple mantra._ _In. Hold. Out._

The second it all started it was like he was sinking, his mind started to muddle, he could process the fact that there was noise around him, but it sounded faraway, his vision tunneled.

_He had done this before –a lifetime ago. In. Hold…_

He could almost feel the way his body had felt back then, like he was in control of every muscle, every cell. Back then Eiji had known exactly how long and how fast he had to make his daily runs to be able to burn all the calories he had consumed, he had known how much water to drink in order to fool his stomach into thinking it was full and how much to actually eat to be able to train, and run and swing to compete and to win. To fly.

_Hold…_

He just had to close his eyes tight when every limb hurt. Clench his fist when he thought he couldn’t go on. Breath in and out when he felt nauseous and to think–

_This is not me. Not my body. Not my pain._

It had felt so easy back then, but then what was that saying? Ignorance is bliss. And he had been so very ignorant to believe he could have go on like that, that all that abuse on his body would go unpunished. He had believed that he could detach himself out of anything.

He had tried to do that today, to lose himself just a little bit more inside his own head by each passing second and each discarded item of clothing until his voice cut through his trance like falling into cold water.

_Hold…_

“Keep them on” Yut-Lung’s cold hands froze on the edge of the cloth covering Eiji’s arms and for the first time he looked at himself. He wishes he hadn’t because it only made him sicker. The arm-covers where the last of his clothes that remained on his body and Yut-Lung was about to take them as well “I could not care less for what’s under there”

It wasn’t what he had said per se, but the way he looked at him. Eiji had been cautious to look anywhere but at him, like the mafia lord had been more a mythical creature than man. In some way he was, the way he was rotten inside should only be mythological, an ominous tale parents told children to keep them out of trouble, but on the outside he wasn’t all that remarkable.

Dino Golzine looked like any old white man in fancy clothes did, there were no horns erupting from his bald head of a tail from his backside, when he talked Eiji could catch a glimpse of perfectly white teeth, but no fangs or sharpened teeth, there weren’t any claws on his hands, only blunt nails that ran over his exposed skin possessively. Vindictively.

His eyes were the only thing truly unnerving about him, the way they roamed unabashedly. They were cold and one of the palest shades of blue Eiji had ever seen and now they were looking at him, though not really at him, not Eiji’s face, but his arms and if before he had had an appreciative, hungry look on his face, now he presented them with a mask of distaste, like out of all that was happening in that room before him, the thought of seeing Eiji’s soulmarks were the one thing that caused him aversion.

Eiji froze; on paper he knew people had different views on soulmates and soulmarks and he had no clue by what morals someone like Dino Golzine carried his life, if he had any, but to him, in his culture and the religion he had been raised in –It was dehumanizing. The way he acted like marks were not only unimportant, but also something to feel disgust about, to Eiji, felt like Golzine didn’t see _him_. Not really, he didn’t see a person being abused; he didn’t see Yut-Lung, a literal minor, being abused, because they weren’t people to him.

Maybe it was for the best. Right?

If he wasn’t human, wasn’t a person, then this wasn’t really happening to him.

His grandmother was always like his hero, she was strong and smart and incredibly funny, even if most people didn’t care to see past the cold exterior, but she also was the definition of the word austere. She ingrained inside his brain from a very early age to not feel entitled to anything, if he wanted something he had to work for it and be grateful if he got it.

Eiji knew he had plenty of faults, but being ungrateful was never one of them, he had always been a glass half full kind of person –Or at least he actively tried to be– and he was always mindful of thanking small mercies.

_Not me. Not my body. Hold…_

Eiji gasps for breath and suddenly he feels it all rushing in, like a movie that’s played on faster to get to the end, all colors look sharper and sounds are louder. Air rushes into his strained lungs making him bend forward with the force of his coughs, his hands fall to his neck as he pants for air and it pains him as much as it relieves him. At last he takes notice of his naked state and is actually able to process that fact into his brain.

There are alarms going off loudly on his head, a blue and red flashing light behind his eyelids every time he blinked, his breathing accelerated as he looked around to the chair where he remembers his clothes where, but in their place there is a whole new outfit he guesses was left for him at some point, maybe Golzine had brought it in with him? One of his guards?

He felt tears brimming his eyes as his stare got lost on the crisp grey button down and brand new underwear, there was a pull on his gut at the thought of wearing them, he just wanted the same raggedy jeans he had worn since they escaped New York and the blue shirt he had been wearing in LA.

His mind wanders off outside the room and he thinks of Ash, was he alright? Eiji had no idea how long it had passed between Yut-Lung making him unconscious and waking him up, he didn’t even know how long it had been since he had walked into this room, but he couldn’t help but wonder if Ash had noticed him going missing yet, if he had been caught too or if he was even still alive.

He fights the urge to rip off his arm-covers and check, the more reasonable part of his brain reminds him that if that were the case he would be able to feel it; that overwhelming cold that never quite leaves you.

And still…

“What the… Oh for god’s sake!”

Eiji hadn’t heard the sound of footsteps outside nor had he heard the door opening and closing quickly. He did hear Yut-Lung’s voice and it startled him enough to make him jump, hands instinctively taking a hold of the sheets, trying to cover himself as much as he could, even though a little voice inside reminded him the younger boy had seen almost all of him already.

Yut-Lung was in a completely new hair and outfit, even more intricate and sophisticated than the one before.

_How long had he stayed this way, lost inside his own head?_

The young boy looks beautiful in a way Eiji is sure his sister would be jealous of, though the thought of his sister right now only aids on making him feel dizzier.

_What would she think of me if she saw me like this?_

Yut-Lung looks disgruntled as he crosses the room in fast and soundless strides, quickly producing a handkerchief seemingly out of thin air and shoving it centimeters from Eiji’s face. Eiji has to flinch back in order to avoid being hit and looks dumbfoundingly from the piece of cloth to Yut-Lung’s face, not sure of what’s he supposed to do next.

Yut-Lung looks increasingly annoyed with him, casting a quick glance at the door and huffing delicately before he himself starts dabbing the handkerchief on Eiji’s face a little more roughly than he probably needs to, it particularly hurts when he starts dabbing over his left cheekbone.

Eiji flinches back again and finally raises his hand to his own face only to feel wetness around his eyes and down his cheeks, he frowns dazedly at his shiny fingertips – Tears? When had they began falling?

“Honestly, he barely touched you. No need to be so dramatic about it” Yut-Lung proclaimed exasperated as he straightened up and walked briskly to the chair by the window. Eiji had enough sense of self to think how hypocritical that was coming from the sixteen year old Chinese spy, but not enough to say something about it.

Said spy took the clothes folded there and walked back “Here” he pushes them at Eiji the same way he had with the handkerchief and same as before, Eiji recoils from them, eyes opening wide in horror “ What? What is it?” Yut-Lung sounded at his wits end.

“I can’t wear that” Eiji feels the need to cough all over again, his mouth feels dry and his throat raw.

“Look, I know they’re ugly, but look at you, you can’t really afford to be picky right now” He rolls his eyes, again darting a look at the door, like he expected someone to come barging in at any second. Eiji reckons someone might.

“No, not that! I can’t I… I want _my_ clothes these are from _him,_ they are… they are not–” His voice is strangled and there is heat behind his eyes where new tears threat to spill out. The mere thought of the clothes Dino Golzine chose for him touching his skin made him feel dirty.

Yut-Lung’s eyes grew for a second like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing before that shock was replaced with indignation “Oh get over yourself! That was nothing!” Eiji reckons that for Yut-Lung it wasn’t “Just put on the goddamned clothes! I don’t have much time!”

“Why do you care?” There was a smidge of something, a speck of anger flourishing deep inside his middle and he could finally look up and meet Yut-Lung’s eyes “You were the one who– who. You took me here, you took off my clothes and tied me up and then left! What do you care what I do!?”

“I don’t” he looked borderline bored now and that only outraged him more because he felt tears streaking down his face again and he patted at them angrily.

“Look I know this may seem like nothing to you and _believe me_ I am so _so_ sorry, but I can’t… think, I feel–” He has to gasp for the air that’s rapidly escaping him and fight back the bile that struggled to rise up.

“What? Is this like the worst thing that’s happened to you?” He asked sardonically and Eiji didn’t have it in him to feel hurt over it, there was a numbness rolling over him in waves. Yut-Lung was looking at him incredulously and unwaveringly, like he had forgotten to look at the door and the imminent threat of someone walking in on them.

“I did not say that” Eiji welcomed the numbness in defeat and slowly raised his hands to take the clothes from Yut-Lung’s shaking hands, once the pile was out of his hands they clenched into fists at his sides “This is not…This is far from the worst thing that has happened to me”

It feels like a part of him, previously untouched is now broken and soiled, but nothing Dino Golzine or Lee Yut-Lung could do to him would ever compare to the day the earth shook underneath him, when the sea rose boundless and warm yellow turned freezing black on his skin.

His Oba-chan was his first soulmate and he had adored her. If it would mean he could get her back, he would endure countless more nights on Golzine’s manor.

“Oh?” Yut-Lung seemed to find it terribly amusing, though his laughter sounded anything but humorous “And prey tell what has little Okumura Eiji experienced that is so horrendous, a scolding from mommy? Daddy sent you to your room without dessert? Broke a little bone or two?” He made a point of looking down at Eiji’s leg coyly.

Ah. So he had noticed, the pink-ish line running over his ankle. Was he able to notice Eiji’s apprehension surrounding it just by looking at the scar tissue, too thick and ugly to not be traumatic? Or maybe he had researched him when he showed up at the house in LA tailing Ash and Shorter? Had he seen the lists of doctors? The months of physical therapy? The amount of pill bottles?

“Why are you here, Yut-Lung?” The clothes were cool and soft as he pressed them against his chest, suddenly his nakedness feeling unbearable against the heavy silence that followed. He almost thought that Yut-Lung would just leave him again without saying a word, the thought strangely heart-wrenching. Yut-Lung wasn’t good company by any means, but he was company and Eiji dreaded being left behind again.

“I made a promise” He answered quietly, his perfectly shaped eyebrows pinching slightly “And you are not about to make me break it, I had to sneak in here and risk myself to get to you again, so do me a favor and just wear the freaking clothes, is better than being naked if he decides to come back or if one of his men is feeling lucky. Trust me.”

Eiji takes a deep breath and tries to think of other things as he looks over the grey button down, it’s not something he would normally wear, the fabric was too soft and probably expensive. It shouldn’t be this hard, he had been wearing stranger’s clothes for a while now, had borrowed Max’s and Ash’s clothes, even worn some Max had bought for them in some nameless store on their way to LA when he called them a _‘bunch of stinky and gross teenagers in need of a friggin’_ shower’, but those clothes were always so big on him, the fabric was cheap and familiar.

He hears a sigh coming from Yut-Lung and then he is moving forward, he takes the button down from Eiji’s hand and makes quick work of pushing Eiji’s arms through it like someone would do when helping a small child getting dressed. The thought brought color to Eiji’s cheeks and he started doing the buttons, but his hands are still shaking and his head is not working right, so he ends up making a mess of it.

Yut-Lung rolls his eyes heavily and does it himself before pushing the underwear his way and turning his back on him “I’m not helping you with that so hurry up” he spoke in commands and with an ever-present layer of contempt that at first distracted Eiji, but now he thought he could hear the softness lying underneath.

After he’s done Eiji steps away from the bed, eerily aware that even the shoes fit him perfectly, but he would rather not think on why that is. He clears his voice to announce he is ready and only then Yut-Lung turns around, he barely spares a glance at the clothes and rather looks at his face for a moment or two of internal struggle before he raises a hand to Eiji’s left cheekbone.

He doesn’t touch him, but he does frown at the spot on his face like it personally offended him. “That’s going to bruise but only a little, where did you even got that?”

“I do not really know” Eiji mumbles, frowning as well trying to think back on a particular hit that might have caused it and coming up with nothing, all of it had been a mess, like swimming through muddy waters that he still couldn’t get out of.

“Well, as lovely as this was, I do need to leave. Your dear Ash is coming to dinner and I’m expected” he set up to leave but was cut short when Eiji grabbed at his arm.

“Ash? He’s coming?” Suddenly his breathing quickened and his grip on the other boy’s arm tightened, though to his credit, Yut-Lung didn’t even flinch, instead using his energy to give Eiji an incredulous look.

“Of course he is. You are here” He said it slowly, like he was explaining something for the third time to a particularly slow child.

The realization crashed over him violently and then he was shaking all over again, his fingers squeezing Yut-Lung's skinny arm impossibly tighter. That couldn’t happen, that just couldn’t…

His eyes focused on the boy in front of him “Yut-Lung, how did you get in here?”

Yut-Lung raised a single eyebrow at him, still having no reaction to the force Eiji was unconsciously using to keep him rooted to the spot “I memorized the code on the door, besides, the security here is amateur at best” he said haughty. That sparked a glimmer of hope.

“Then you can get us out! We can leave before Ash even gets here” His face morphed into a slightly manic smile undaunted even against Yut-Lung’s patronizing expression.

“Eiji, you forget I’m as trapped here as you are, I’m just better at this game and the play is already in motion” His voice regains the coolness it had before as he tugged his arm, Eiji lets him go. Yut-Lung walks all the way to the door before he says “It’s better for both of us if he play from the inside for now”

Eiji is not sure why he feels disappointed, it’s not as if Yut-Lung was actually on his side, he knew that, but there was a flicker of resignation that flashed on his young face as he spoke those words that broke Eiji’s heart just a little bit. He puts the code into the lock on the door and touches the doorknob once the little red light goes green.

“Yut lung wait!” Desperation grips him, he doesn’t want to be left alone again, to helplessly wait for something miraculous or disastrous to happen. He knows he has no place out there, he doesn’t know how to talk someone into doing what he wants from them, he can’t fight, can’t help. He’s sole purpose here is to play the hostage and Yut-Lung, beside his power and name, is much the same and yet he can’t help himself… “Help him… please”

His face is impassive, not much goes through it as he half turns and stares Eiji down before an uncharacteristically ungraceful snort leaves his mouth “What is with everyone asking me for favors lately?” He shakes his head “I don’t owe anything to you Okumura Eiji” and for the first time Eiji thinks he looks his age.

Yut-Lung turns the knob and quietly walks out unto the hallway, the lock on the door beeps and the light goes red. The room is empty again.

Eiji stays standing for a while before he sits down, then starts pacing and sits down again. There’s not much else he could do, there is the occasional noise outside his door that makes him perk up, before it fades away, the sun completely leaves the horizon and the dwell well into the night and he thinks.

Just thinks and thinks, imagines the best and the worst outcomes. Part of him wants to take his arm-covers off, to draw some semblance of comfort off the marks lining up and down his arms, all the wonderful people that are so dear to him and so far away. He hasn’t talked to any of them in weeks, none of them could help him, none of them knew where he is of what could happen to him, none of them but one.

_Ash, please be safe, please…_

Eiji paces the room and imagines Ash back in Cape Cod, he had looked so lonely and beautiful in a haunting, painful way. Eiji felt his soul reach to his since the first moment, even when Ash asked him to leave, even now. The sole thought of him brings hope and warmth to him in this cold room and Eiji doesn’t have the energy to ponder over why, he doesn’t have it in him to over complicate it, that feeling inside his chest, beating into every part of his body.

_Ash, please be safe, I’m so scared…_

He forces himself to hope that the next person to open the door will be him, on his white t-shirt and red converse sneakers. He would be grinning at Eiji’s worrying and lead him out to see Shorter laughing and free. Ibe-san and Max waiting with a running car and they would be off into the sunset.

His stomach growls and he feels weak, he has memorized every corner of this room and hopes he can forget it easily once this is over. He wonders if Ash remembers these walls, this was where he grew up, wasn’t it? If returning to Cape Cod had been painful, Eiji couldn’t even imagine how he must feel walking these halls again. Was Ash here already? Eiji imagines that perhaps he is already in one of the other rooms or searching the hallways to get him.

He had come once, the first day they met, when he was kidnapped with Skipper, he had showed up like a super hero and surrendered himself when Arthur pointed a gun at Eiji’s head. He hoped this wouldn’t go down like that, he hoped that Ash wouldn’t give in and instead would barge on his door.

Of course, as fate would have it, it isn’t Ash who opens his door next.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look at me posting twice in a month lol   
> I felt inspired for the first time in a long time, I hope you all like this chapter! Thank you so much for all the comments, really your reactions mean the world to me!  
> I hope everyone is safe! Remember to use a mask!


	17. 17

That night came in flashes.

Eiji, when conscious, wouldn’t be able to fully recall it for years to come, when asked, he would get a wave of distress and disgust, an impulse to fight or flight too big to keep still, he would get flashing images of blood, pain and tears. Of despair. All of that was but a carcass, a footprint of a much larger beast.

It was at night that the memories flooded in more complete and cohesive, when he dreamed and his defenses went down he could remember each word Arthur said, each taunt and gibe, he could see Ibe-san and Max tied and beaten and he could see Ash, chains holding him up as he thrashed and cried like an animal in the wild.

It was in his nightmares he could see every part of that stranger’s face, a young face, crying for mercy, snot traveling out his nose as he did all he could to fight away the venom with little success. Eiji never learned his name, his life, but he recalls the way his horror-stricken face contorted into one of a beast, he went livid, his crying voice turning grotesque as he drived a knife through the air, cutting and slashing, as hands hit and punched and choked and he cried, Eiji cried, and their tears mixed with each other and with the blood that dripped and dripped on his face, warm and watery, Eiji sees as life is torn from those stranger’s eyes, feels all air leave his lungs as his body crashes on top of him.

It was so vivid he could almost see it all, for one haunting, heart-stopping moment that would make his mother and sister’s hearts break to see, would make him cry and scream in his sleep, would make him crawl under his bed while still unconscious and cause him to retch once he woke up.

For all the wonderful and horrible things he had experienced in the U.S and in his life, that night remained frozen in time. It was a blur, the liquid someone injected him with kept him docile and disoriented, even when the terror cut through the drug, some remnants of it rattled around his system even for a couple of days after, leaving him with recurring nausea and intermittent headaches and moments of confusion.

It all comes in flashes and he goes from pacing on that heinous room with the ropes on the headboard to a dungeon and blood then to another room. This time no one worries about turning up the light, there is no clothes on the chair by the window, there is no visitation from Yut Lung.

He’s alone.

He punches the door until his knuckles are torn up and purple and he crashes down, fights his own body to not throw up as he gasps for air. The walls close up on him on an endless loop and the darkness consumes him, he was all alone and there was a pressure inside his head threatening to blow it all up, he was all alone.

There is only a sliver of light on the other side of the door and he focuses on it, focuses on Ash. He was there, in the mansion, he was there and he had killed that man, he was there and he would come for Eiji. Every noise, every shadow had Eiji jumping _–He will come, he will come, he will come._

Eiji takes a moment to catalogue his own state, there a tears and slashes all over his clothes, some only scratches and some deep enough to cause concern, the worst is the pain on his neck where hand imprints were sure to appear anytime now, his throat felt raw.

The second he thought it, violent hacks convulsed through his body making him fall backwards and away from the door.

 _‘Lucky for you you’re not on call tonight’_ a voice had said _‘Papa likes his little boys nice and quiet’_ the other had sneered.

 _‘Kittens like you should at least try and be cute’_ eyes had traveled up and down his body like greedy hands groping and clawing at everything they came across and there was something inside his body that made him dizzy and nauseous, made him unable to fight anymore.

The night came in flashes so he isn’t sure if its seconds or hours, at one point he feels heat on his back and it makes him realize is morning. The day advances and he finds himself incapable of moving a centimeter from where he is. The light moves as the day progresses and he remains kneeling, his knees surely a deep purple by now, but he has spent the entire day hyperventilating, his body is fatigued from trembling so much and no one comes. Not for food or water or even clothes.

He’s alone.

At some point he must’ve passed out because in the blink of an eye he wakes on his side, his back to the room and his cheek pressed against the fiber of the carpet. There was darkness, oppressive and heavy, only the moon gave some light to the room as it filtered through the windows and the sliver of yellow light that came from the hallway from under the door.

Eiji tried to move, but everything hurt like never before, even after his injury he had woken up in the hospital with analgesics dripping from an I.V, now he had to fight for every movement, his pained groans and whimpers broke the silence like thunder.

He powered through until he had his back leaning on the bed, he had enough conscience to wish he had passed out on it instead of on the floor.

 _‘Has it really been a day?’ –_ He thought as he took on his surroundings with his head a bit clearer, panic rose on his chest and he was acutely aware of his own heartbeats.

_‘Why would Ash take this long?’_

His mind conjured up the worst scenarios possible, trepidation swarmed his stomach, he hated to expect the worst, but nothing up to now gave him any hope of the contrary, for all he knew Ash may have been poisoned too or Ibe-san or Max, any or all of them could be rabid monsters, they could have killed themselves or each other in the meantime Eiji had dissociated and passed out.

What about Yut Lung? Was he just in some room unaware or uncaring to what had happened, was he safe? There were too many questions and no way to know the answer. He fought inertia and rose to his wobbly feet, stumbling to the door and trying uselessly for the door knob to turn. Locked. The windows were pretty much the same story, he could only see out to a huge garden that would make his mother overjoyed in its expanse, he could only see small lights here and there and not much else; his eyesight had never been the best and at this moment he regretted all the times he blew off his mom’s comments on poor eyesight running in the family and to – _just get checked up already!_

 _‘Oka-san, I’m sorry. Mika-chan, I’m sorry. I don’t think I’m coming back home any time soon, I’m sorry I didn’t call, I’m sorry I messed up, I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m_ – _’_

_Crash!_

There was noise coming from somewhere under his room, finally something to cling to. His joints protested and his ankle lit on fire as he stood up quickly, crossing the room in clumsy strides. Everything around him rattled and shook and for just a second he thought _–Earthquake–_ but it wasn’t quite like that, it lasted to little, the movement wasn’t as much as waves shaking every foundation, but instead like a car crashing, a balloon popping; the noise it caused was different.

It broke all hell loose; suddenly there were feet running wildly from one side to the other, there were voices shouting commands and curses and there was the distinct sound of guns cocking that he had gotten so intimately used to. His heart accelerated, but in a much more pleasant way– _Excitement_.

He tried for the door but it remained locked and he felt powerless, it didn’t matter what happened out there, unless he found a way out he would be just as doomed as before. Despite the amount of adrenaline coursing through his veins, he couldn’t bear to keep on standing any longer and with a resigned sigh he sat down heavily on the bed.

The chaos persisted outside, now gunshots joined the mix and it came from all sides, it was like the entire mansion was moving except for this room he was trapped in. His fingers anxiously picked on the edge of his left arm cover, he really shouldn’t take it off, for all he knew someone could barge in any second, there could be cameras, but he was desperate and more than a little irrational at this point.

Cautiously he pulled the cloth down, hands trembling as he held his breath, he pulled slowly until ocean green appeared shyly, only a sliver of it before he pulled the cover back up quickly, but it was all it took to give him certainty. The color on his skin was bright, it was warmth and meant home; no matter the chaos outside his mark was yet to turn black, there was still hope, there had to be.

Just as he thought so there was a noise from the door, a click, the door unlocked and in flooded the light.

“Dear Lord just look at you! I think you looked less pathetic when you were naked”

Yut Lung sneered as he pushed the door open and walked towards him, his voice was cutting, but there was a tightness on the corner of his mouth that caught Eiji’s eyes, the other boy’s eyes flickered a little too uncertainly over Eiji’s multiple injuries and ripped clothing and paused. If Eiji didn’t know any better he would say Yut Lung looked troubled.

“Where is Ash?” Eiji had no time anymore, it wasn’t like the last time when he let his own head render him pretty much useless, this time he was awake and desperate, Yut Lung’s weird backhanded way of acting wasn’t going to stop him. Yut Lung noticed his change in mood and seemed adequately surprised by it, Eiji tried not to feel glad for it.

“Most likely on his way here, go down this hall and then to the left, walk close to the walls and watch your back” He instructed, voice serious and commanding, trying to entail just how dangerous it all was, but Eiji couldn’t help to feel a thrill running up his spine at the thought of seeing Ash again “This is the last of my favors, my promise is fulfilled. Whatever happens to you from now on is not up to me, am I being clear?” he threatened.

Eiji nodded, suddenly thrumming with energy to run, to fly, far far away from there, to go to Ash. Yut Lung nodded back at him before turning around and going for the door and well…

Eiji didn't know what kind of nonsensical, Stockholm-syndrome-like, PTSD-induced, bull shit of a guilt-trip was going on inside his brain but there was a tightness to his chest, a pang of hurt that went through him at the thought of Yut Lung being left behind, so before he could truly think about it he grabbed for Yut Lung’s hand, stumbling forward weakly, knees giving in enough that he had to use the Chinese boy for balance.

Yut Lung sighed a long suffering sigh, but allowed Eiji to steady himself against him for a moment “Gods, what now? I told you I’m done with favors, what’s with everyone thinking they can just–”

“Come with us!” Eiji blurted out and silence reigned. Yut Lung’s eyes widened.

“What?”

“Come with us. Yut Lung, you don’t have to stay with Golzine, you don’t have to allow him to… to… Do that to you!” Eiji cried and held Yut Lung’s gaze long enough to catch a flicker of _something_ in them.

It lasted but a second before Yut Lung grabbed Eiji’s hands and dislodged them from his clothes “No matter how tempting your offer is, to leave all my power and station just to go play in the dirt with all of you, I must decline” He said in that fake cordiality Eiji was getting used to hear from him “In any case it was never within my plans to stay here, I have all the information I need, but I thank you for your consideration, besides I still have one more visit to make before leaving” He gracefully stepped around Eiji and took ahold of his shoulders, pushing him outside the room “Now go. Be quick” He directed and Eiji could swear his voice had softened ever so slightly, but the next thing he knew he found himself running.

The mansion is like a maze, but he doesn’t get lost on it for too long before he can hear him, calling his name in desperate shouts, though it feels like his voice comes from all sides at once, he rounds a corner and a hand grabs for his arm, swinging him around and hard against the wall, the end of a barrel staring right at him.

It must say something about him that he was getting used to that sight, but he doesn’t dwell too much on it, because behind the gigantic weapon aimed at him is the boy he had been looking for. Ash’s eyes look like wildfire, frantic and wide, he’s wearing the remnants of what once had been a suit, but now it was ripped and bloodied, his white shirt was ripped wide open allowing him to see small cuts and scratches. His ensemble was finished with a whole arsenal of weapons strapped to him; he looked like he had come out of a vintage action movie.

None of that mattered really, because it was him, Ash who looked agitated, hair in disarray and breathing erratic. It was Ash who dropped his weapon to the ground immediately and only tightened his grip on Eiji’s arm. Ash who had their soulmark bared for the world to see, bright and solid on his left wrist.

Eiji cries his name and he wants nothing but to crash against the other boy and cry and scream nonstop for hours, but before he’s able Ash’s eyes shift and pulls Eiji’s arm so he’s left behind him. That’s all the warning he gets before two gunshots cut through the silence, Eiji snaps around to see, but the two bodies are already falling limply to the ground.

“Do I scare you?” Ash is smirking in a wolfish way Eiji had never seen before, even if this was a world imposed onto him, Ash was in his element and it showed as he looked at him questioningly over his shoulder.

Eiji knows he should, most likely, if he had any self-preservation or common sense left in him, but he clings to the other boy and stares into his jade eyes “Never” He says and he feels like he’s never been as sure of anything. Even though there are chandeliers and lights all around the hallway, it feels like just at that moment the darkness receded, finally, allowing him to breathe easier.

Ash’s smile shifts to something calmer, warmer, more surprised and Eiji can’t resist any longer, he lunges forward encircling the blond in his arms for a moment before Ash winced, Eiji pulls back immediately, pressing himself back against the wall and catalogues Ash’s state.

“You’re hurt really badly” He says consternated and his voice is hoarse as he raises a hand tentatively to the other’s arm where a deep gash bleeds out slowly.

“It’s nothing” Ash answers, the smile’s still there.

It ignites something inside Eiji, something warm and giddy and completely ridiculous at a moment like this, but that’s what soulmates were like, senseless and wondrous, just like Ash himself. It was otherworldly.

Ash reaches and Eiji meets him halfway, their hands link and Eiji is pulled onward, they dive face first to the chaos. Together.

Sing Soo Ling did not, by any means, felt prepared for this, but what else was new?

He rarely felt prepared for things, trouble usually found him and he adapted, though apparently he adapted a little too well to find himself being Chinatown’s Boss right hand man at just fourteen .

He would like to say he didn’t know how it ended up that way, but it would be a lie, he knows exactly what he’s done to get ahead, what he’s left behind just to move faster, easier. Since he can remember Sing has been, mostly, alone; his father was some lowlife he never got to meet and his mom came and went as she pleased. Lao was a constant, but they had met later in life.

Unlike his older brother, he hadn’t been born into gang life, he and his mother had moved around the city and it’s whereabouts for most of his formative years, never staying in one place for too long, never in a school for more than one semester, if he was lucky. They’d lived in Long Island for a while, surrounded by all kind of cultures but his own; he was alone in being Chinese so he adapted, his mother never really tried to get him closer to his roots, he only spoke english fluently and for most of his life he thought Panda Express was the height of Chinese cuisine.

When he turned seven he moved to Chinatown to live with his aunt, she enrolled him on the public school nearby and suddenly he was surrounded by his own people.

Somehow that was even lonelier. He felt like an outsider, only half sharing his classmates’ experiences, his aunt’s girlfriend had arrived to the U.S just about two years ago and still struggled with her english, the night they met she had welcomed him eagerly into her apartment in quick Cantonese and a warm smile only to freeze and frown once she realized he couldn’t understand a word of what she was saying.

Then he met Lao, the older boy welcomed him openly, becoming protective of him in school and welcoming into his own group of friends when Sing found himself without any of his own age, but Lao was living with his deadbeat dad, he had two part time jobs which made him skip school more often than not and left him with little to no time to spend with Sing, so Sing started skipping school too, if only to be able to roam around on his own.

It was thanks to that that he met the Wong’s, siblings recently orphaned. Nadia was the big sister and she would take one look at him skulking outside her restaurant and would usher him inside and into a booth, she did that to a lot of kids, she fed them and she put them to work, washing their dishes and cleaning the tables for her claiming running the restaurant on her own was too much work and cursing her unhelpful little brother.

The unhelpful little brother was none other than Shorter Wong, the boy was only one year older than Lao, but to Sing he was like a super hero. If Nadia gave them shelter and food, Shorter was in charge of giving them community; he would take everyone and anyone under his wing, exuding a confidence parallel to none. Shorter soon was leading the entirety of Chinatown’s gang activity managing to secure an alliance to Ash Lynx himself, the elusive leader of all Manhattan.

Shorter was all he could ever hope to be and so it was obvious to him to do anything in his power to help him and be near him. It seemed to pay off for he soon enough was just as part of their little family as the purple haired boy was, suddenly people respected him, valued him, were drawn to him and he wasn’t alone anymore.

Well… almost not alone. Both his arms remained stubbornly bare of any color, while most people he knew had at the very least one soulmark painting their wrists, he had none at all, not even one that later faded off. He told himself it was alright, he tossed himself to his work and buried that worrying feeling deep inside him.

Now that he was fourteen he had stablished a rhythm, a way of doing things, following Shorter’s orders with gusto and gaining the respect of those around him. Things were simple enough, so of course it had to come to an end.

It began with the uprising of a small fraction of Lynx’s men being led by some guy named Arthur, Shorter complained about him loudly and constantly to the point the man had a terrible reputation in Chinatown before even setting foot on it. Apparently he abducted a couple of the Lynx’s men and injured one badly, a kid.

It only spiraled downwards from there.

Soon Shorter went into hiding with only a select few knowing his whereabouts, Sing himself among them. Since Shorter was hiding, Sing had to assume command of their gang, but that was alright, he knew where to find Shorter when he had any doubts, that is, until he disappeared completely.

Ash Lynx went missing too, not even Nadia, notoriously close to both of them, had any clue of where they might have gone, only that they were together. Both Ash’s gang and his own were pretty much orphaned, a beast with its head cut off.

The first few days were fine, but after a while people started talking.

_‘Gone’_

_‘Not coming back’_

_‘Left us alone’_

_‘Abandoned us’_

They all revolved around the same topic, their men were starting to feel betrayed by Shorter’s absence. Sing felt like he was drowning in unanswered questions and they only kept and kept on coming.

Then the phone call came.

Sing was called urgently by one of his guys, alarmed by the fact that Chang Dai, for the very first time, had closed its doors, the little sign marking it as ‘CLOSED’ even at 11 in the morning, a full two hours before it usually opened, Nadia was nowhere to be found.

And so he found himself in his current predicament. They had joined forces with Lynx’s men and swarmed in to an already chaotic scene. Sing may have never had a soulmate, but he figured Shorter was as close to one as he’s got, no one had impacted and changed his life more completely and if there was even the slightest chance he was somewhere inside the mansion, Sing was willing to go to hell and back to find him.

He’s certain of this as he sees the life choked out of a guard, his wire pressing painful indents to his neck and he turns to the next one “I’ll let you live if you answer this question” He calls “Where’s Shorter Wong?”

He hopes his desperation is not as palpable on his tone, hi hopes he sounds a smidge as commanding as Shorter did. The man will most likely die anyways, blood sipping in an intermittent motion, arterial bleeding.

“He’s not here” He struggles to choke out, the men around him react in alarm.

“They took him somewhere?”

“He never got here, must’ve made a deal. He handed Lyx’s soulmate and bolted” Sing felt dread come over him, disbelief crashing against his body.

“He’s lying” Alex, Ash’s second in command calls from the end of the hallway “Ash doesn’t have any other soulmates”

“He does now, saw the mark myself” The dying man coughs.

“That can’t be, he and Shorter are soulmates and best friends. Shorter wouldn’t do that” He’s glad to hear his voice comes out strongly and assured, when inside he feels like a lost child.

“Ask him yourself if you don’t believe me. When that boy was in danger the Lynx went wild. Like the devil himself” The man’s slurring his words and groans in pain, he sounds awfully convincing to the point he could see Ash’s men starting to get suspicious.

He leveled Alex with a searching look, he didn’t want to have to fight his own allies in the middle of the mission, but he was Boss now while Shorter was gone and Sing knew he owed it to Shorter and to their men to do what he must.

Much of the same must have been going through Alex’s mind because he shakes his head and meets his gaze head on “Let’s keep going, until we know the truth”

Sing felt relief for just a short moment and nodded back at him. They disband after that, each group looking for who they came for and sure enough, Shorter’s nowhere in sight, not he nor his men see even a clue of Shorter ever being there. Instead of them finding Shorter, they’re the ones found.

At first glance he thinks is a woman, long colorful dress and cascading black hair carefully adorned, but that’s not it, instead is a boy, not much older than himself carrying a suitcase and a cooler. “Make this boys leave right away” He orders.

It fires something up inside Sing, maybe is the frustration of no finding who they went all that trouble looking for, maybe it’s the dread of thinking that maybe that man wasn’t lying after all, maybe Shorter had betrayed his own soulmate and left them all, but he can’t help himself anymore. He’s just so tired.

“Who the hell are you!?” He yells angrily.

“I’m Lee Yut Lung, the youngest brother of Lee Wang Lung” He answers with a grin, like he’s well aware of the bomb he just threw on all of them. Sing can see his mens’ faces overcome with shock.

He clenches his fists, but is cut short when a second explosion shakes the ground behind him. _What the hell is going on in that place?–_

“Do you know where Shorter is?” He asks instead.

Lee Yut Lung seems to consider him for a moment and Sing has never felt more coldly and profoundly analyzed “I don’t” He says finally, raising his voice as to be heard over the helicopter blades “But in here I have something that will help him get back to you” he reveals motioning to the objects in his hands before extending the arm containing the cooler towards Sing “Here, I’ll even let you carry it, call it a gesture of good will” He smiled coyly.

Sing reached to grab it, trepidation crawling all over him like a thousand spiders, their fingers barely graze each other and then–

_Warmth._

_Color._

Sing gasps as he feels it rather than see it. His left arm tingling with something right under his fingerless gloves. _What… was that…?_

Confusion takes over any other emotion and he knows is fairly visible on his face. Not only that, but its reciprocated; Yut Lung’s eyes widen and then his face falls and he sighs tiredly, for a moment he ages a decade in a single second before he resets and it’s like a mask falls into place.

“Well, will you come with me or would you rather be executed here with your friends?”

Sing feels something cold deep in his chest, the smile on the boy’s face was every part sweet as it was disquieting.

Well, being Boss meant doing what he had to in order to keep his people safe, he knew as much was truth. He shared one last look with Lao before stepping into the helicopter, cooler with suspicious contents in hand and an alien feeling, not quite unwelcomed, settles into him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eiji: If I had a dollar for each time Yut Lung broke into my room at Golzine’s mansion I would have two dollars, which isn’t much, but it’s weird it happened twice.
> 
> So! Here we are, I battled a lot with how to write this and ended up with this, I wanted to avoid to write basically everythin that happens in the anime, so I glaze over some things and try to focus on the character's ractions, I hope you liked it!
> 
> Please leave a comment, it literally gives me all the motivation in the world.
> 
> Oh and yeah, you might've noticed that we only have one chapter left! That because I don't want this to get too long and because I want to go with a series kinda thing, tell me what you think!


	18. It's you

Before he met Ash, Alex had been a lost cause, had spent almost the same amount of time on foster homes as he had on Juvie.

Running away from one’s home could end up different for a lot of people, for him it was sleeping in cold benches and walking endlessly under a relentless sun, it was learning to have quick hands and deft fingers to grab food from some store and a wallet or too from some blank face or other. It was following the wrong people and doing the wrong thing more than once.

He had no path to follow and no one to tell him how stupid he was being beating people up and dealing for whoever proclaimed themselves boss for a while. Many people of many ages and races tried to take ahold of Manhattan with varying degrees of success, Alex paid no mind to who was on top, they all melded together after a few years, either getting caught and taken to jail or getting themselves killed over silly mistakes and misjudgments.

Ash was the first one that was different.

At only fifteen he was already rising through ranks, outwitting and outfighting everyone who dared oppose him, it was also apparent by the way he never seem to pass too much time locked up that he had some amount of support from the higher ups, the Corsicans who had tried to take over that part of the city for years already. Even so, Ash never acknowledged it, never tried to work that to his advantage, instead taking over Manhattan on his own merit, somehow uniting all kind of races and kinds, most older than him, not through fear and violence, but through respect and hard work.

Alex was in a dark place when he met him, way before Ash rose all the way up, back when he was fourteen and crawling out of wherever he had escaped from. Alex was nineteen and had made all sort of mistakes and every bad choice in the book by then and was now trying to settle down some, make better decisions and most importantly, take care of his daughter.

Lily was born out of her parent’s stupidity and the US lousy sex education, she was only one year old when her mother passed her on to him, a mess of tears and regret full of _‘It’s just for a few months’ and ‘I’m sorry, Alex’_ , and two years old when Ash came into his flat, warily following a chipper fifteen year old Bones.

“This is Ash, I met him getting out of Juvie, we got out at the same time!” Bones exclaimed cheerily, like it was the most exciting coincidence. Not even the two new wholes in his mouth where his teeth had been just five months prior could deter his optimism. Alex would always found equal parts amusing and distressing how Bones told them that he got some asshole to punch him in the mouth, allowing him to ask for early release so his ‘life wouldn’t be threatened’.

Ash was like a skittish cat, all sharp edges and furtive glances, trying to find out all the possible exits, he eyed Alex apprehensively as he entered his place, a simple two bedroom that he had been sharing with Kong and Bones for the last year, affording it sorely through the pity their landlady took on him and Lily.

Ash kept to himself, never talked and was just generally quiet, almost passing unnoticed, Alex would have been reticent to accept him in if it weren’t for how he cared for Lily, slowly opening up to Alex once he saw him singing her to sleep and doing whatever he could to bring food to the table as Kong and Bones cared for her when he was out dealing late into the night.

Ash would be eerily good at walking around quiet as a mouse as to not wake her up, he would disappear and then return, fancy baby clothes and toys mysteriously appearing in time with him, Alex also noticed the limping and the bruises that came with each excursion. Ash would also leave for a couple of days from time to time, bringing surprisingly good Chinese food in surprisingly big amounts with him.

“You shouldn’t go to Chinatown too much, the food is great and all, but they aren’t our people, they don’t take kindly on strangers” Alex warned him one night, it had been a rough one, the business slow and the cops on their heels, Lily coming down with a fever and needing medications Alex could definitely not afford only to find them delicately placed on the coffee table in the Livingroom, Ash quietly smoking in the kitchen, sitting on the cabinet and puffing smoke out the tiny window, bony legs swinging lazily.

The blond boy spared him a tired glance, bags deep under his eyes, purple bruises forming on his knees and a split lip. Alex felt his stomach churn at the sight, he was supposed to be the adult here, Kong was the oldest after him and he was just turning eighteen, Alex was supposed to protect them, even if he never expected Ash to come into his life.

“You also should stop going… wherever you go to get things for Lily. Me and Kong work enough, we’ll get by” He added even if both of them knew it was a lie.

Ash exhaled a last string of smoke before turning it off and tossing it out the window, gracefully swinging off the cabinet even if he winced at the landing. “It’s no problem” He just said, walking briskly past Alex and crashing on the couch as he had for the past few months. It just made Alex sicker to see that Ash meant it. When he saw that Alex simply followed him, sat on the couch opposite to him and had no intention of retiring to his room for the night Ash sighed tiredly and spared him a side-glance “Owner’s a friend” He explained “They give me the food for free”

“And the clothes and the meds? Are those from friends too?” Alex pressed on, stony and resolved. Ash’s eyes shifted to something dangerous, murderous even and Alex felt actual fear of the kid in front of him, just for a moment before Ash gave a humorless chuckle.

“You could say so” He sneered. He wasn’t going to cave, Ash had no intentions of explaining himself and the look on his face said there was nothing Alex could do to make him budge.

“But they aren’t free” He persevered, holding his ground.

Ash’s smile faded to something small, affronted, before his face became a cool mask of disinterest “Whatever, at least I get her the shit she needs, you and Kong go out and do shit every night and she’s all day crying and coughing” He spits out.

The truth tastes bitter on his tongue, but he fights for composure, even if every part of him screams and wants to punch the kid in front of him, he levels him with a cold look as well. Ash shifted.

“I thank you for the meds, Ash” He says tightly “But if you keep on doing what you do to get them I won’t take them anymore, I can take care of my daughter just fine”

“So you would let her be sick just for what? To spare your pride!?” Ash hissed, sitting up on the couch and staring incredulously at him. Alex chuckled bitterly.

“If I had any pride left I wouldn’t be working for some racist asshole that sales bad coke” he tells him with a tired smile playing on his face “But he’s who’s in charge now, greedy bastard keeps most of the gain for himself”

Ash remains quiet after that, but the look on his eyes transforms and for the first time Alex sees fire in them, a fire that he would come to recognize and both fear and admire. Alex goes to his room after a while, with a sigh and a forming headache and Ash lays awake, planning.

In just three short months Ash had turned fifteen and gathered big numbers under him, a few months later and he was no longer being called Ash, but rather Boss. He no longer disappeared only to return limping and Alex got a fair share for his work, even enough to put Lily in a freaking daycare.

Ash may be years younger than him but Alex had no shame in calling him his Boss, he had followed a good number of idiots in his life and Ash was anything but, he was focused and fair just as he was relentless and deadly.

It’s because of that that when the Japanese kid appears all big doe eyes and saying things like _‘I can’t lose you too’_ and _‘I’ll wait for you forever’_ , Alex panics.

It has been almost four years since he’s met Ash, he has even met Shorter for a few years now, enjoyed plenty drinking games and bets with the man, received a good share of free meals from his sister once she learned he had a little girl back home and had been first hand witness at how those two related to each other and never in all those years had Alex seen Ash look at someone like he did the black haired boy.

Eiji.

“Alex, take good care of him” Ash orders without sparing him a single look, which isn’t out of the ordinary in on itself. Alex tries to calm himself, make himself believe that this is just another stray, like Skipper and plenty others that Ash couldn’t seem to avoid taking under his wing.

The boy, Eiji, couldn’t be more than sixteen himself and by the state of him Alex could gather that nothing good had happened to him, besides, a young boy in Golzine’s mansion couldn’t bode well.

“Sure thing, Boss” He says and expects that to be it.

“Never leave him alone till I get back” And it’s not exactly his words that feeds the pool of dread slowly forming on the pit of his stomach, but instead his tone, the way he never stops staring at the young boy and the way those green eyes drop all defenses, even if it was just for a second, when the boy says _‘I’ll wait for you forever’_.

The boy says forever and Alex knows it means danger.

Eiji says forever.

Ash, brave, ridiculous Ash crumples in front of him, granting Eiji pass to yet another side of him as tears rush to his jade eyes to showcase a pain so grand, so unbelievably great and all-consuming that it chokes the air inside his throat, it feels like a punch to the gut and Eiji wants to reach and cradle and sooth, Eiji says forever and knows he means it, knows it’s true.

He’s not really sure how it happens, when he moved from kneeling on the floor and staring up at him to sitting on the bed close, so close. When he reaches and Ash meets him halfway, uncharacteristically desperate, like a dam breaking, a clot dissolving to allow flow and healing, they cling to each other.

Since he’s known him, Eiji has met what feels like a thousand facets to the same man; there’s the Ash that saved him from Arthur, the plastic one he met at the prison, the one in Cape Cod and the one at Golzine’s, there was the Ash Lynx that walked into his gang’s hideout like Moises parting the sea in half. Eiji doesn’t know much about Christian tales, but something in his mind supplies him with the image as he makes his way through the people rushing off to catch a glimpse of him.

They listen to him like he’s a God, fear him like one too; adoring yet far away. It’s so different from the teenager telling him in all seriousness how his biggest fear is a pumpkin and Eiji can’t help himself and laughs at him mercilessly, because after everything they had been through he was able to see him no as many different facets, independent and incohesive, but as a human being as a whole, complex and filled with contradictions.

So it didn’t matter that he could murder a dozen men with a machine gun to get them out of hell, it didn’t matter that all his men, all leagues more grizzled and tough-looking than Eiji could ever hope to be, scatter out of his way like rats when he sends them a single look, Eiji can see all of that and be undeterred, acknowledge it and also see the kind smiles, the broken boy underneath.

He also knows he’s part of a privileged few that’s allowed so close, Ash could just as easily shut him off so Eiji treasures each moment, cherishes the way his body is solid and warm beneath him, how he goes pliant to the slightest show of affection and care. Eiji adores each rise and fall of his stomach and lets the slow movement under his head lull him to sleep. It’s an odd position and he’s not sure how they ended up that way, but he can’t bring himself to worry about it, not when all he can see behind his closed eyelids is the way Ash’s eyes looked at him as Eiji made his promise, bright and pained and incredulous and _hopeful_.

It all settles a need deep inside his chest, maybe it does for the both of them if the way Ash falls asleep almost immediately is any indication and he’s so grateful that they’d come this far, that he had been allowed to reach this moment.

He succumbs to a deep sleep and is only woken up when he feels the sun hit his body from the window behind him, when the other body in the bed is gone and the space around him feels colder.

He turns slowly, panic settling on his chest just for a moment and then he sees him; he’s a vision. The sun is like a godly halo around him, giving him golden hues and enveloping him in suffocating light. Ash’s eyes are open and staring out the window, far away and distant so Eiji allows himself a moment.

Sleeping in such an odd position last night and all their recent ordeals had left him tired and aching, his ankle hurt like he had just broken it for the first time, his neck was most likely bruised and there were multiple cuts, deep and shallow on his body.

Eiji felt like a thousand needles were prickling his arms, it was an annoying feeling that he was reluctantly growing used to since the beginning of their little adventure. When he thought of living abroad he never considered the fact that he would lose the privacy his home granted him.

When he lived with Mika and their mom he didn’t have to worry about arm covers, they were family, it was safe. It was the same when he shared an apartment with Rihito, the tall, gangly boy one year his senior was a part of his life for as long as he could remember, more of a wacky big brother than just a friend, he was one of the select few who knew about Eiji’s ‘Soulmate collection’ as he called the rainbows on his right arm, though not his left. Not in front of him, not back home, sometimes not even when it was just himself.

Now, though, if felt like his skin hadn’t felt sunlight on it since he arrived in the U.S, he was sure the must be a very distinct tan line from under his elbows all the way down to the half of his palms where the cloth hooked on to his thumbs.

He massaged the spot unconsciously over the fabric as he contemplated how long he had been away, since when hiding his soulmarks had felt more of a task than custom.

“Do you usually sleep with those on?” Eiji wasn’t sure how to answer, it felt like he had been reading his mind, so he just stared dumbly “I mean, I noticed you wore them all the time around us” Ash was quick to amend “But I guess I was just wondering if.. it’s like… Does everyone in Japan do that or…?” He trailed off.

“Well… Yes and no?” He considered “Most people are like me and use them all the time and only take them off when they are alone, with family or… Or a partner. Sometimes a very close friend” He added “There are some people who wear them even with them and only take them off when they know they are alone and there’s people that are much more. Uhm. Liberal? It depends on a lot, like religion, region, things like that”

“I’ve never seen our mark on you” Ash blurted out, eyes open like saucers as if the words he said had surprised even himself.

“What?” Eiji opened his eyes wide and felt blood rush to his face. There was a moment where he felt himself be possessed by the spirit of his mother and felt utterly scandalized at the comment. To his credit, Ash looked pretty gob smacked as well.

“I just mean! Well, you’ve seen mine and, well-” I t was a very otherworldly thing to witness; Ash Lynx fumbling for words, but Eiji couldn’t say he completely disliked it. Ash closed his eyes and took a deep breath before continuing “Sorry, I just meant to say that I feel like I barely know you. We’ve been through hell together, you could’ve been killed because we’re soulmates and I’ve never even seen… Well it’s just kinda hard to believe sometimes… That someone like you…”

“Someone like me what?” Oddly enough Eiji didn’t feel insecure, he felt honestly curious, expectant. Ash was avoiding meeting his eyes now; sitting awkwardly on the window sill in front of the bed made him look painfully young and Eiji ached to reach for him.

Ash finally shook his head and a frown took over his features “You know” He grumbled side eyeing him.

“What do I know?”

Ash huffed, a wall almost visibly forming around his body, but at least now he was looking at Eiji “C’mon Eiji, you were at Dino’s, you heard my old man’s story back at Cape Cod, you must’ve realized by now that I’m damaged goods”

“Ash, no! Of course not, you were hurt yes, but–” Eiji tried to argue only to be cut off.

“Don’t you get it? People like Dino and Marvin have used me more times than I care to count! And I’ve let them–”

“Because you had to! Ash you were just a child! You are still so young!” He felt tears gather around his ears at what he was hearing, he felt so drained it was a wonder how Ash managed to make him hurt too.

“I was never a child, Eiji, not for a long time and you! You!” Ash moves forward, placing his feet firmly on the floor and laughing humorlessly “God, Eiji you’re as far of that as it gets! You should’ve never even known this world existed if it weren’t for me, you should’ve never seen it!”

“ASH!” Now Eiji was moving forward too, though far less gracefully than Ash had, fumbling to have a grip on the sheets if only to feel somewhat grounded. Ash’s eyes widened comically and Eiji would have found it funny if he wasn’t so horrified “I want you to actually listen to me for once. You, Ash Lynx, are far from the worst thing that has happened to me” It felt like a lifetime, but also like a moment ago that he had said something similar to Yut Lung, these two were really far more alike than they realized “I don’t regret joining you for a second, everything bad that happened to me, _to us_ in that place it was never your fault”

“Would you still say that if it weren’t for our mark?” Ash’s face was stony, a hard concrete wall onto which Eiji’s distress crashed against like meek rain. Unfaced.

It was upsetting but it also gave Eiji pause, it made him really take the boy in front of him in and actually think about what he was saying, it made him realize… “Do you think I only followed you because we are soulmates?”

“Didn’t you?” He asked defiantly and resolute and Eiji felt positively shocked.

“Ash, no” He shook his head emphatically, but by the look on the other one’s face his words weren’t going through. Eiji sighed conflicted, his shoulders dropped as he stared at his hands for a moment “Ash, I could be wrong… But it almost sounds like you think you are my only soulmate” He said slowly, nervously, his nails picking on the edges of the arm-covers. Ash only frowned, paused and looked like he had a million questions, but Eiji went on “You say you are damaged goods, but you got it wrong. That is me”

“What are you saying?” Eiji hung his head, giving up on maintaining his gaze on the boy in front of him, especially now that his voice had taken a grave tone. A few weeks ago Eiji wouldn’t have had any idea of what kind of thoughts could be swirling around inside that head, Ash was as unknown to him as the origin of gods and the intentions of spirits, sadly, that was no longer the case.

Sadly, because now Eiji had seen too much, had pushed himself too hard onto the other boy’s life and was able to discover all the gory details and unpleasant truths. Eiji adored every part of it, not because it happened (his heart breaks for what happened to him), but because he was allowed to see what most didn’t, because he had been granted permission not only to see, but to reach and comfort and that healed his own heart just a little.

Now though, it was time for the ugliest part, the hardest, most impossible part; now he had to reciprocate. It was all too easy to take on the world for other people, especially for someone as wonderful as Ash Lynx, Eiji believed he could spend another thousand nights at Golzine’s manor if it meant that Ash never had to deal with that man again, Eiji could sleep on trucks and go hungry and cold, he could bear being beaten and choked and slashed by a man possessed over and over again if he could keep Ash away and safe… And yet he felt a cold, trickling fear crawl into his system now that it was time to let the other boy look at him too, letting anyone see the mess that he tried to keep hidden, piled inside busting closets and swiped into the darkness under beds.

But it was time, he knew as much, so Eiji took a shaky breath – _Here goes nothing_ – and with trembling fingers he pulls.

He feels raw and unprotected, Ash’s eyes on his arm feel like fire scorching his skin, but the cloth covering his arm is off, lying useless on the space between them and now Ash could see, all of him.

Rihito’s lively green greets him for the first time in a while, Hana’s solid blue calms him like it always did, Dora’s bright red, the one he had avoided like the plague after his injury, now welcomed him back and granted him with the same pride and courage it always did, Eiji allowed himself to be filled with the warmth and emotion only soulmarks could give and forced himself to raise his eyes again.

“You are not my only one and I understand if that is too much for you” Fighting the tears behind his eyes felt harder by the minute, but he powered through “I wish I could tell you that I shared my soul only with you, but that is not true, it has been split into pieces for a long time… I didn’t follow you just because you were my soulmate, maybe I did at first, but I stayed because I care for _you_ , you are a person, not just a line” He was glad he was able to say all of that, but now he felt exhausted, he couldn’t hold Ash’s shocked gaze any longer.

“Ours’s isn’t there” Ash mumbles, green eyes fixated and voice quiet.

“No, but I don’t want to show you my left arm” Eiji replied honestly, catching sight of the two black lines there was the last thing he needed, he doubted he could take it right now “But there are four more marks there, including yours” He told him.

He kept his eyes glued to the floor as the silence stretched between them, it was killing him that Ash wasn’t replying, but he was more afraid of knowing what his reaction would be. Ash had already told him to go back to Japan once. “I know having this many is not seen kindly here” He laughed “You must think it disgusting”.

“What?” Ash’s sounded completely astounded “Who told you that?”

“Back in Cape Cod, your father said–”

“Fuck my old man! He’s got no idea what he’s talking about” Ash exploded startling Eiji enough to make him look up and be met with Ash’s fiery gaze “He’s just a resentful bastard, too bitter about my mom and then Griffin leaving him, but too proud to ever actually doing something about it”

“So… You don’t mind?” Eiji felt like a weight was tentatively lifting from his chest.

“There’s nothing to mind! You could have a hundred marks, you’d still be you” Ash said angrily a contrast to the red blush dusting his pale cheeks.

And well… That was something new. To Eiji his marks had always felt life-changing and they had been to some degree, but also there was a part of him, a part that made him feel guilty and ungrateful, that felt them intrusive, like since the moment the first line marked him he had no longer been _just_ himself, but rather a part of something and while that was incredibly comforting and he wouldn’t trade any of them for the world, it could feel _crowded_ at times and at his core Eiji had always craved for freedom, he had always tried to fly higher and higher and higher.

Icarus’s greed and all that.

But now _-I’d still be me-_ the thought made him soar. Tears gather hotly on the rim of his eyes and there was something big and wondrous trying to explode out of his chest and slip past the wobbly smile taking over his face.

“Would you like to hear about them?” He asks and his smile is tentatively reflected on the boy in front of him, his soulmate.

His voice goes soft and quiet as he says “Sure” and settles more comfortably on the window sill, expression open and eyes kind and Eiji talks.

With or without soulmarks to tell him to, now he knows _-I’d still be me and I’d still stay here._

_Forever._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To say the las couple of weeks have been bad is an understatement, my cat Edgar passed away and writing has been the last of my worries, but things are slowly getting better, or at least are not as bad and I really wanted to update this story, your comments have given me a lot of motivation and also… Last chapter!! I can’t believe it!  
> I’m so so grateful for all the support and kind words; this has been so much fun! Even if the main story is over I’m still not done with this AU, I already have a couple of chapters written or half written that I’ll be uploading soon enough so I hope you stick around!  
> I really don’t know what else to say, but to thank you all! Be safe!


	19. Transition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hello again!

_[10.20. Calling Eichan]_

_The number you have dialed is not in service, please try again._

_[10.21. Calling Eichan]_

_The number you have dialed is not in service, please try again._

_[10.25. Videoconference Eichan]_

_Device disconnected [Do you wish to try again?]_

_[10.29. Videoconference Eichan]_

_Device disconnected [Do you wish to try again?]_

_[10.31. Calling Eichan]_

_The number you have dialed is not in service, please…_

The small ‘ _tap’_ sound that her thumb does as she forcefully hangs up is hardly satisfactory and a small part of her longs to have been born a few years earlier solely for the drama of snapping a flip phone close to end a call, if only to have the smallest outlet to the dangerous pit of anger that’s been brewing inside her for the last few weeks.

“Typical” She grunts focusing on the fiery heat swelling her chest and decidedly not acknowledging the one making her eyes wet and her throat close up. Her grip on her phone gets tighter in time with the noise of students messing around her growing louder and louder until that, and the thunderous beat of her heart on her ears is all she can hear.

Weeks. It’s been weeks.

She stares unseeingly to the trees on the other side of the fence, all the way across the yard and through the sea of students catching up or trying to finish homework due to the next class after recess.

She calls them weeks, though they started turning into months a while ago.

Somehow thinking that she hasn’t heard from her brother in almost 8 weeks feels better than 2 months, months had a very scary ring to it. When she thought of it in weeks she could trick herself into thinking the radio silence was to be ended any moment now, 8 weeks sounded big and long, like a story that was about to come to an end, if she began counting in months it felt like she was preparing for something grander.

It was kind of like being stuck in a long and hellishly boring lecture, sneaking peaks to a seemingly unmoving clock over the head of the teacher. If the clock said she had half an hour left it crushed her soul, it was way easier to think of it as 30 minutes, because 30 minutes could be 3 times times 10 or 2 times 15, or even better, 6 times 5 minutes. Waiting 5 minutes just 6 times was easy and manageable, counting weeks felt easier, kinder almost.

It’s been 8 weeks.

Her phone rings and she whips it up quick as lighting only to see a notification appear from her calendar app ‘Remember biology test tomorrow. Study!’ it read. She sighed in defeat and tiredly opened her chat with Eiji like she had done so many times by now.

**[August, 28 th]**

You did not just hung up on me! Twice! (ノ°益°)ノ[9.26 PM]

[9.26 PM] (>ω^)

Niichan! (ノ°益°)ノ[9.27 PM]

Not even replying anymore? That’s low even for you… [9.30 PM]

Come one! How am is supposed to avoid homework if you don’t even answer?? [9.37 PM]

And the world’s worst brother of the year goes to…!!! [9.43 PM]

[9.44 PM] Sorry Sorry!! (シ. .)シ

Welcome back! And just in time to receive your award too! Nice timing Okumura-san![9.44 PM]

I’m being sarcastic in case you are too old to realize [9.45 PM]

(^.~) [9.45 PM]

[9.46 PM] Sorry! I was in the subway! So different from the train back home!

[9.46 PM] Also, do your homework!

Send pictures! [9.47 PM]

Also, no [9.47 PM]

[9.50 PM] Maybe tonight! It’s almost 8 AM here and I have work to do before the interview

[9.50 PM] And don’t be a brat and do your homework, you’re like twelve how hard can it be?

Wow, suddenly I can’t read [9.52 PM]

[9.52 PM] HOMEWORK!

Gross. You’re worse than kaasan! [9.54 PM]

But anyway good luck with your interview! Ganbatte! [9.54 PM]

[9.59 PM] Thanks! Good luck with that homework! (>ω^)

I take it back, I hope your interview goes horrid, stupid [10.00 PM]

**[August 29 th]**

So?? Did it go horrid? [07.00 AM]

This is the worst morning ever! The shower pipes busted again! [7.25 AM]

Alright! [03.59 PM]

Day over, handed over my homework and Miyahara- sensei only gave us more??? [04.50 PM]

To prepare for our entrance exams she says… sigh [04.53 PM]

Hello?? [04.59 PM]

What time is it over there anyway? Are you working or something? [05.10 PM]

Are you mad at me or something?? [10.59 PM]

**[August 30 th]**

Onii-chan? [00.24 AM]

_[02.16 AM. Incoming video call]_

Frail.

That’s what she thought when she answered, when she saw him.

He looked so frail.

Everything about that call was off, he was always so careful of when he talked to her as if not to bother her, never would her brother dream of calling her at 1 AM on a school day, least of all without checking whether she was even awake or not.

She was. She hadn’t been able to sleep, something both loud and muted that chanted _wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong_ wouldn’t leave her be since that first unanswered text. He had disappeared or over an entire day and no matter how many times she asked, he wouldn’t say why.

Whatever it was, Mika knew it was something bad. Nothing good would leave her big brother with his eyes red-rimmed, stuttering and so distracted, he looked frayed on the edges, worn. He called and in the waver in his voice she could tell an attack was looming around the corner, maybe had already happened for all she knew, so she checked that her mom hadn’t returned from her _‘visit’_ to their neighbor (her nightly visits that now entailed sleeping over, apparently) and started guiding her brother to a more settled state like she had done so many times.

He always tried his very most to not make her do it, looking so guilty and small and not like her big brother should look, after. It was never like that before that damned injury, before that she hadn’t seen Eiji crack at all, not evens a tired sigh or a longing look. He had always been so… bulletproof. He was her hero, still was, even if he needed her help and a little white pill from time to time.

He never explained, though, what had driven him to such a state. He returned to work and their chat didn’t grow much, some emoticons here, a video call there and then nothing. She stares at her one sided conversation which consists mostly of question marks and an insult or two.

She had stopped writing four weeks ago too.

She stared at the phone almost constantly, obsessively. Checking for those three dots to appear on the chat and for Eiji to appear saying sorry, explaining that he lost his phone or had too much work or was having so much fun that he had skipped all their calls and ignored her texts.

In her life there weren’t that many people that stayed. People that placed her first, steadily and consistently, no one but Eiji.

Her father had been bed-ridden and deteriorating since as far as she could remember, sometimes she could recall a time when he had picked her up above his head to make her laugh and had been big, and vital and safe. Maybe she was just imaging it, all of it happening when she was so young she can’t really tell if those memories are her own or if they were crafted out of old stories and movie scenes.

Her mother being there is up for debate too, Mika is inclined to believe that she was once fully there, that her eyes once met hers fully without drifting after more than a few minutes, her mind elsewhere, a time where she wasn’t working late hours and visiting their neighbor almost daily and where she actually listened to her answer when she asked things like ‘How was school?’ and ‘What do you want for lunch tomorrow?’

Her family didn’t go much further than that, her aunt Eiko was a free soul, a cloud drifting from sky to sky with abandon, her grandmother resting in the ground for years now, her soulmate returning to her country and their mark disappearing as fast as it came. Mika loved them all and yet no one had been there, truly been there for her the way Eiji had.

Now at fourteen she realizes it wasn’t necessarily a good thing, her brother had been but a child when he begun taking care of her, he shouldn’t have been as unbreakable as he was. Was that it? Did he finally free himself of the shackles he had worn in Japan? Was _Mika_ one of those shackles? Maybe that’s why he wasn’t answering her calls, her texts, her.

Had she been too mean? Too annoying? It was always an issue with her, boys in her class often found her too crass; teachers sent judging looks her way as if saying _'Really? This is the youngest Okumura?'_

Her math teacher especially always managed to look both disappointed and unimpressed, once she had even felt the need to comment on how like her mother she was becoming and sure, alright, Mika might be critical and maybe she was the first to jump in the chance to complain about her mom but only _she_ got to do that.

So what if her mother had had to drop out of high school? So what if Eiji had gotten a scholarship, a bunch of gold medals and had been freaking adorable to boot, so what if she was failing math? She was doing pretty great in art class and science and she was the best in her gym class, thank you very much.

It hurt and it pissed her off at the same time. It left her with a bitter taste on her mouth and a feeling of impotence in her muscles.

She grips her phone tighter on one hand as the other one form a painful fist on her lap, scrunching up her skirt and nails catching her skin, leaving red lines under it.

“Mika-chan! What are you doing? We’re going to be late!”

Mika startles so violently her phone falls to the floor and the hairs in the back of her head stand on end. She turns around quickly and spots her friend Junko, eyes wide open and mouth slightly o shaped, pausing mid-step about a meter away from her.

“I’m sorry!! Did I startle you!?” She screeched waving her hands around and reaching to pick up her phone for her “Oh no!! It’s cracked! I’m so sorry, I’ll pay for it!!” She cries, pushing the phone forward and bowing exaggeratedly.

“Junko! Calm down, it was already cracked! It’s not your fault! I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have been so distracted” Mika says hurriedly before Junko has a stroke, reaching for her phone and laughing nervously.

Her friend looks up from her bow with teary eyes and a relieved expression “Oh thank god! I did _not_ have the money to pay for it” She answers completely serious before stretching up to her full height “What were you doing so far anyway? Class is about to start” Junko asks, glancing nervously to the building where some students were already drifting to.

“Sorry, just trying to make a phone call” Mika says waving her phone lazily, trying to appear nonchalant about it.

Of course it didn’t fool her. She and Junko may not be the closest of friends, it was hard to be after Mika left the volleyball team where they’d played together for years now and instead spent her breaks trying to call someone who never answered and her weekends on visits to the hospital, but either way, Junko knew her and could tell when Mika was lying as easily as she could lead her team mates to victory year after year.

Junko placed her hands on her hips and used her whole height (all 170 centimeters of it) to look down at Mika (all 160 centimeters of her), eyes narrowed and brow pinched. She was truly intimidating when she wanted to be.

“He hasn’t answered yet?” She realizes, eyebrows going up and the pure and unadulterated surprise in her face only twists the knife in her chest and squeezes her stomach more.

Suddenly there’s heat behind her eyes and – _No no no no nooo this can’t happen here, not at school, not in front of everybody!!_ – Mika breathes in sharply and avoids her friend’s compassionate eyes, opens her mouth just in time with the bell ringing loudly from the building.

Mika shakes her head and forces a smile “We should hurry, Jun-chan” she says, voice clipped and artificially cheery before mechanically walking away, not waiting for her to follow her lead. Junko catches up anyway in two easy strides, long straight hair trailing behind her like a satin curtain.

“Didn’t he go with your uncle? Can’t you call him?” She proposes hopefully and Mika wishes she could just let it go, she could just let Mika drown in her own problems alone, her own disappointment was hard enough to bare, she didn’t need Junko’s worry on top of it.

“He’s not my uncle, Ibe-san is just a family friend and I already tried, he isn’t answering either” Mika purses her lips and takes larger strides, faster steps. Junko keeps up easily.

“What about his friends? He was pretty close to them, right?”

“Not after the injury” Mika responds curtly. It wasn’t completely untrue; Dora had been the first to be cast aside, Eiji would refuse to take her calls, ignore her messages, always looking guilty and so, so afraid, when Mika had called her to ask if she knew of her brother’s whereabouts the young girl could only smile sadly, Rihito and Hana on the other hand were still a big part of his life, but they were in college while Eiji was back in Izumo putting all his efforts toward healing and alienating himself from everyone, Mika was sure that if it weren’t for the fact they lived together she would have been left behind as well.

Like she was being left behind now.

Mika didn’t like bringing the injury up, but it did its job; Junko fallen quiet and finally falling behind, steps slowing down.

Mika hears a small ‘Oh’ coming from her friend and ignores it, makes quick work of finding her seat in the classroom and sitting watching diligently towards the board. Junko sits on the seat behind her, but doesn’t try to engage anymore. Her brother’s accident and subsequent recovery were a sore topic between them too, what with Mika quitting on the team right before a big match because of it and Junko being the captain left without her number two.

To this day her friend thinks she gave it up because between caring for her brother, her studies and her father, she was overwhelmed and distraught, which in all honesty, she probably was, but it wasn’t that, not really.

It was fear, Mika saw her brother falling to the floor session after session trying to just take a couple of steps, saw him staring blankly out windows and his jutted our ribs, nasty bruises and full plates of food left untouched, saw the pills and the desperation, the lack of life in his eyes. If that’s what doing everything for a sport did to someone Mika would rather quit, no matter the years of training and the rush it gave her

No matter the friends she was letting down.

She hated reminding Junko of those dark times, her friend was lively and sweet and she had rendered her sullen and quiet in a single sentence, but if she took on Mika’s problems, she would be relentless in trying to solve it and as sweet as it was, it was also annoying and tiring, Mika wanted to sulk and get angry and she wanted someone to let her do that freely.

Most of all, she wanted her brother back.

Her head is full of gloomy thoughts and her eyes burn behind her eyelids, threatening to reveal her inner turmoil to everyone around her, the minute her class is dismissed and she’s free for the day, Mika quickly packs her bag and goes to change her shoes, purposefully avoids looking at Junko when she tries to get her attention, gym bag hanging limply from her hand.

She takes her bike and sets for the road, avoids thinking that it used to be Eiji’s bike before he left for college, avoids looking at the stickers he had stuck on the handlebars when a long frame gets in the way.

Mika sighs “I’m not on the mood to talk about my feelings today, Junko-chan” She mutters angrily, she knows she’s being rude and a brat, but _God,_ she just wants to get home.

“Then don’t!” She replies and her tone finally makes her look up, suddenly her sweet friend is frowning at her, her hands clenched into fists and, Mika had to do a double take, tears were gathering on the corner of her eyes. “I’m sorry, Mika-chan, but I miss my friend! You’re not the same since your ni-chan left! Practice is boring without you and you look so angry and sad all the time!”

Mika was glad she had managed to partly leave the school, because Junko was raising her voice. A knot was forming on her stomach and she felt suddenly dizzy.

 _‘I know’_ She wanted to say.

_‘I’m sorry’_

_‘I am sad and I am angry and now I’m so stupidly happy because you noticed and no one notices and…’_

“Whatever” Is all she can muster, for some reason she feels tall, tall walls closing up around herself.

_If you let her in, she’ll just leave_

For a full minute all she can hear is Junko sniffling and all she can feel is how she’s slowly detaching herself from it, feeling less and less guilty about it by the second, more and more numb to it.

Finally she hears students nearby and she sighs, her eyes never leaving the ground “You’re going to be late to practice, Junko-chan” She says and slowly and deliberately sidesteps around her.

“I wish you focused on the people you had around you instead of just waiting around for those who already left”

Mika doesn’t stop walking, she also doesn’t look back at Junko, not even as her breath gets caught on her chest and a sharp pain makes her want to double over.

Junko doesn’t follow her again and is at least a few blocks before Mika remembers to climb on her bike, she’s glad the rode to her home is mostly unused, because she was sure she wouldn’t notice a truck even if it hit her.

Focus on the people around her, huh? Who were they, really?

“Okaeri” She calls to an empty house, toes her shoes off and sighs.

“Tadaima” Comes her mother voice from the kitchen.

Mika stops dead on her tracks before venturing inside, not even bothering to put her backpack down she walks into the kitchen where her mother is sipping on what Mika is pretty sure is wine, she has her work clothes on, bare feet dangling from the high chair she was sitting on. She looks tired yet calm, giving her a small smile before turning towards the window again.

“I thought you’d be at Ito-san’s place by now” Mika says without mercy, she’s tired too and she doesn’t get the benefit of easing it off with a sip of wine so she’s feeling vindictive.

Her mother stops, her glass stopping halfway up before she places it resolutely down, she turns to look at her and Mika has the odd feeling they’re looking at each other for the first time, seeing each other finally. They have the same eyes, not in shape or color, Mika took after her father in those, they were just as tired and just as apprehensive, something the men in their family never seemed to share, at least no with the both of them.

“I thought you had volleyball practice”

“Quitted. Ito-san?”

“At his house I would expect” Her mother answered simply. Mika stared, her mother sighed “I cancelled tonight, I haven’t seen you in a while, thought we could order in, watch a movie…” She trailed off.

If Mika didn’t know any better she would say there is a certain vulnerability in her mother’s voice, an awkwardness to her stance, like trying to act friendly with a stranger. Mika felt somewhat lost, it was easier to put up a hostile front when her mother isn’t actually trying, now it just felt weird.

Focus on the people around you, huh?

“Do you think we should forget about Eiji?” She blurted out and felt her eyes widen, just like her mother’s “I-I mean… He’s not here, he said he’d come back, but he isn’t even answering us, he…” And oh no, the burning feeling behind her eyes was stronger now, hot trails where falling down her cheeks and she couldn’t do a thing about it.

At least her mom looks just as lost as she does, for a second at least before she centers herself, she places the glass on the table again and slowly walks towards her, mother and daughter finally meeting face to face as her mom takes her face between her hands and suddenly Mika feels tiny, she feels fourteen and that feels so incredibly small without her big brother standing in front of her.

At least her mom is standing in front of her now.

“I think” She begins, thumbs carefully wiping her tears “That it’s you and it’s me, I think we should work with that for now” She says kindly and she tucks a wavy strand of hair behind Mika’s ear “He’s your brother and your soulmate, just like your father is mine, even if they’re not here and even if our relationships with them aren’t the same as before it doesn’t mean it’s over” Her mom takes her hand and squeezes her wrist over her arm-covers “They are with us forever”

Mika feels herself tearing up as she crashes against her mother’s chest and she feels four again as she rubs her back and hums a melody half-forgotten.

Forever, huh?

Mika wasn’t so sure about forever, but she could work with that for now, at least.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!!! It's been so long!
> 
> So first things first, I am fully intending of following this story, I'm planning on publishing the first chapter of the next part this week, I'm posting this here just to give a warning!  
> Honestly, this chapter kinda got away from me, it was meant to be a short one to transition from this story to the next, but what can I say? I got lost in the angst, I hope you liked it!  
> I know this was mostly OC's and that can get kinda boring, but don't worry, the next part will have plenty of Ash and Eiji!  
> Please leave a comment or a kudo, I hope you're all doing well!
> 
> Also, could you tell I got into Haikyuu? Lol I couldn't help myself and had to make Mika a volleyball player! Sorry!


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